Brodie looked less uneasy. ‘Jonas Turner told it like it is, mister. Strangers is likely to bring trouble as well as anythin’ else.’ The sun was now gone from the sky and it was obvious Brodie was having to strain with time-weakened eyes to see Gold in detail. ‘And appears to me, mister, that you’re the kind has trouble for a middle name.’
‘Okay, Mr. Brodie. Sorry to have held up your evening chores. Bye bye.’
Gold clucked to the gelding and tugged gently on the reins to turn him away from the front of the way station. He sensed the small eyes of the inhospitable man gazing curiously at his back as he rode along the trail for a few yards, then made to angle into the pinyons to the north of the station.
‘Hey, where you think you’re goin’, mister?’
Gold halted the gelding again and glanced back. ‘Bed down, Mr. Brodie. And the timber seems like a better place than the scrub desert out there.’
He waved a hand to indicate the flatland that stretched away to the north and west in the fast gathering dusk.
‘Shit, I ain’t havin’ that!’ Brodie snarled angrily, his temper pitching his voice higher.
‘You’re not?’
In the two words and the way Barnaby Gold sat casually astride his mount, there was an implicit challenge. No aggressiveness — simply a calm asking of what the man intended to do about the situation. And for long moments Brodie was growing angrier in his predicament. Then: ‘Shit, come on back here, you ornery cuss. Best you’re where I can see you than skulkin’ about in the trees.’
Gold showed his personable grin, which Brodie failed to see, for he turned and went into the building as the newcomer started back along the trail. Lamplight augmented the glow of the stove fire at the window and open-door.
‘I ain’t waitin’ on you, mister. You take care of your own animal.’
Gold did this, dismounting and leading the gelding around the side of the low building, along the yard fence and in through a gate to the corral. While he attended to the needs of the horse in the stable where six others were installed, he heard Brodie out in the yard, cursing at the chickens who had gorged themselves on the contents of the discarded pail which was supposed to be enough for two days’
He left the saddle and all its accoutrements in the stable and returned to the main building the way he had come — to enter through the front door, removing his hat as he did so. Stepping into a spartanly furnished parlor, most of the furniture crudely made from the same kind of timber that was used in the construction of the building. Except for a large stove in a corner and a good quality, worse for wear rococo-style sofa placed nearby.
Brodie was seated comfortably on the well-padded sofa, chewing on a wad of tobacco. The Winchester was back on brackets in the wall just inside the door. After bawling out the chickens, he had also had the time to set another place at the rough hewn pine table which was attended by four chairs.
‘Close the door and make yourself as comfortable as you can here, son. I’m bakin’ a beef pie and roastin’ some potatoes. You don’t like that kinda grub, you’ll have to eat outta your saddlebags. You want hard liquor, you’re in the wrong place. I’m sworn off it’
He offered this welcome with reservations after an appraising look at the newcomer, apparently surprised at Gold’s youthfulness: visible in the light from the ceiling-hung kerosene lamp now that he had taken off the black Stetson.
‘Appreciate it, Mr. Brodie. Sounds good.’
Gold took off the frock coat and hung it from one of a row of hooks under the rifle. Then unbuckled his gun-belt and released the tie of the holster from around his right thigh. The man on the sofa showed a sour expression as he watched this.
‘Cookin’ and takin’ care of livestock is what I’m good at, son. Reckon from what I’m seein’ I know what your line is.’
‘Is there a place I can wash up?’
‘Ain’t worth me openin’ up the passenger facilities just for you.’ He jerked a thumb at a door behind the sofa. ‘Through there. Five minutes to supper time.’
With the door left open, enough light entered the bedroom for Gold to see the narrow bed, the closet and the washstand with the bowl and pitcher on it.
The aromas of cooking food and burning kerosene were not strong enough to mask the stink of body odor emanating from the unmade bed. There was no soap or facecloth, but there was a towel which smelled much the same as the bedclothes. The water in the pitcher was clean.
‘I’m an undertaker by trade,’ Gold said when he emerged from the bedroom, the dust of a day on the trail cleansed from his hands and face.
Brodie was carrying the pie to the table, on which a dish of roast potatoes already steamed. He looked at Gold with surprise.
‘Sit yourself down and eat, son.’ He returned to the stove, raised the lid and spat the mess of chewed tobacco into the fire. Then came back to the table, pulled out a chair across from Gold and cut into the pie. ‘Said I weren’t gonna wait on you,’ he reminded after piling potatoes on to his place alongside the pie.
Gold helped himself to the food.
‘Undertakin’ explains them black threads you wear, son. But business in your line so slow you gotta go out put folks in need of the service you give?’
Brodie talked with his mouth full. Barnaby Gold waited until he had swallowed a first mouthful of the delicious tasting pie — the beef tender as butter and the pastry thin and light.
‘Been told a Texas family will be gunning for me soon, Mr. Brodie. The guns are for protection.’
The man across from him nodded. ‘I don’t wanna hear no more, son. Better than even chance strangers mean trouble. The less I know, the less chance of me gettin’ tangled up in it.’
‘Barnaby Gold is my name, Mr. Brodie.’
‘I don’t give a shit about that, son.’
‘Appreciate it if you’d remember it.’
‘What the hell for?’
‘Should anyone come by and ask if I was through this way.’
‘You mean you want those Texans to catch up with you?’
‘I want to go to Europe, Mr. Brodie. Prefer not to leave any unfinished business behind.’
‘Matter of honor or some such crap?’ ‘No, sir. Matter of when I leave something behind me, I don’t want to have any reason to look back.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE marriage of Barnaby Gold Junior to Emily Jane Freemont was the subject of much talk in Fairfax for a long time after the ceremony: conducted by the Reverend Baxter at the church in front of a congregation comprised of the boy’s father, John Hogg and Jack Cater, the blacksmith, acting as best man and the barber giving away the bride.
In female circles the gossip was for the most part on the lines of marry in haste and repent at leisure. While the men folk spoke incredulously of how ‘that oddball kid’ managed to find and win Emily Jane, who had to be one of the best looking girls in the Territory. But it was envy, rather than some God-given vision of the future. That caused so many citizens of Fairfax to predict a bad end to the match.
For twelve months, by which time the subject of the whirlwind courtship and hurried marriage had palled and it became obvious to the eagle-eyed that Emily Jane’s belly was still as flat as ever — the couple lived happily in the parlor, kitchen and two bedroom accommodation attached to the business premises of Barnaby Gold and Son. Sharing this with the older Gold, who when he had taken a little too much to drink in the saloon could be persuaded to say so much and no more about his son and daughter-in-law.
‘I never knew there could be another person in the world the same style as my boy. But there surely is and Emily Jane is her name. Keep themselves to themselves in the house the same as out in the town. Like him, she don’t say a lot, but she’s as respectful as he is. Keeps the place as a new pin and cooks near as well as my Elvira used to. Never did think my boy’d be able to find himself a wife who’d suit his ways. But them two, they’re like a hand and a well fitted glove. Only thing is...’ And here his voice
would trail off and he would shake his head, sadness in his eyes. ‘Only thing is, without doing or saying anything, it’s like they don’t want me to share in this happiness they got Like they reckon it’s in short supply and they don’t have any to spare. Real strange. Real strange...’
Emily Jane went to Standing on the day before their first wedding anniversary. She knew what present Barnaby was going to give her, for she had seen him working on it. A William and Mary style lowboy in walnut with trumpet turnings and teardrop pulls of brass. While watching him at the carpentry she had seen that his set of wood chisels was the worse for wear. And he was sure that when she set off north along the trail, driving a buckboard borrowed from the Reverend Baxter, that she was intent upon buying him replacement tools.
But Emily Jane did not return to Fairfax until she rode in wrapped with a blanket and slumped over the horse led by Floyd Channon.
When she had not come back by nightfall, Barnaby saddled one of the black geldings and rode for Standing.
The mining town was quiet, dark and locked up. But Sheriff Walt Glazer, wrapped up warm against the chill night air in his sheepskin coat, was seated on the buck-board, the horse already in the traces.
‘She’s gone, boy. On the Tombstone-bound stage that left midday. Bought a five dollar one-way ticket.’
Her purse had held just ten hard-saved dollars.
Barnaby Gold hitched the saddle horse to the rear of the buckboard as the lawman climbed down.
‘Appreciate the trouble you took with this,’ the young man said to the older as he dropped on to the vacated seat and unwound the reins from around the brake lever.
‘Don’t you want to know if she left any message for you, boy?’
‘She wouldn’t.’
Glazer sighed sadly and shifted the pipe from his mouth. ‘You’re right. Just said to tell the Fairfax preacher man this rig could use some axle grease. I attended to it’
Gold nodded.
‘Sorry, boy.’
‘Appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Glazer.’
‘Seemed to be a spur of the moment decision she took. Fred Grange over at the hardware store ... he said she was in his place, askin’ advice on some carpenter’s tools. When the stage was about to pull out. And she just left his store, run to the stage depot, bought the ticket arid got aboard. Yelled that thing about the axles needin’ greasin’ out the window of the stage.’
Barnaby Gold nodded again, and did not look back, along the northbound trail the stage had taken, as he started the buckboard rolling in the opposite direction.
Sheriff Glazer was quick to make it known around Standing that, as far as he could see from the way the boy took the news, he had been halfway expecting something of the sort. And this was the consensus of opinion when word of what had happened reached Fairfax, brought by a group of matrons who had visited the town to the north on a shopping expedition. For all the younger Gold had told his anxious father was that Emily Jane had gone away for a while: and he didn’t know when she would be back.
Then tongues began to wag as frantically as at the time of the unexpected marriage. The girl had only pretended to be the same kind as her husband. In truth, she could stand his taciturn reticence no longer after the initial flush of the romance of marriage had faded and she found she was unable to change him. There was little enough social life in Fairfax for a girl like Emily Jane, but maybe he even forbade her to attend the summer picnics, July Fourth celebrations, barn-dances and church get-togethers that he himself shunned. This was the explanation most often agreed on during after-Sunday service discussions sparked off by the women of the town. In Jeb Stone’s saloon, provided Barnaby Gold Senior was not present, the men folk were inclined to leer over a cruder reason for the girl’s decision to leave.
‘He’s tall and he’s pretty strong from havin’ to dig all them graves. But just ‘cause a man’s big built don’t mean he’s got plenty of what a lot of women want.’
And the drunker the men who took part in talk of this nature, the more genuine were their opinions that the young husband had failed his beautiful wife in the marriage bed. For each could recall, aided by liquor-warmed images in their minds, those times when Emily Jane had smiled knowingly at him. As if she had realized how her breasts displayed in profile or the mere movement of her hips when she walked inflamed the desire of the man who looked at her.
Some of the men at these late night drinking sessions in the saloon even spoke in detail of such incidents. In their stores, out on the streets, even at the Golds’ funeral parlor: and reflected regretfully that they had made no advances to discover the extent of Emily Jane’s frustration.
But, as before, in time the gossip died a natural death. For no one dared to ask the deserted young husband for his version of what had happened and eventually it had to be accepted that Barnaby Gold Senior was speaking the truth when he said his son had not confided in him. And the boy became the same as before Emily Jane entered his life. Which, it was realized, was little different from while the girl was with him. Except that once again he engaged in his lonely pursuits in entire solitude instead of having Emily Jane at his side.
On long rides through the surrounding hills. Making fine furniture in the workshop when there was no calls for caskets. Reading books and magazines which came to him through mail-order. Being coolly polite to all who greeted him but never inviting conversation.
But he never used Jeb Stone’s saloon in Fairfax any more. Or went to Jack Cater’s for a haircut. Instead again began to make irregular trips to Standing. Always there was a business reason for the visit. But always, too, he spent time in the Silver Lode Saloon. Even longer in a back room of the cantina. Sometimes had a haircut.
And the name of Emily Jane was never again mentioned within his hearing until the day his father died.
*****
Steve Brodie went to bed early at the Huachuca Vista Way Station — straight after washing up the supper things. Taking care of this himself, maintaining that the chore was necessary whether he was alone or had company so it didn’t count as waiting on his guest.
‘Sofa’s pretty comfortable, son, and if you keep the stove goin’ you won’t need no blankets. If you ain’t here no more when I get up, I won’t think none the worse of you. Night to you.’
He had bitten off a small chew of tobacco before starting on the dirty dishes and now spat it into the fire, before going into the bedroom and closing the door behind him.
There had been a great deal of talk as the two of them ate supper, most of it by Brodie about his days as a railroad man in the south before the war brought him west Barnaby Gold merely agreed or disagreed from time to time, as the man with a reputation for disliking strangers made the most of having an easy listener.
Now, on his own, Gold added some fuel to the fire, pushed in the stove damper and took off his boots. Doused the kerosene lamp and accepted the invitation to make use of the sofa. It was not long enough to lay out flat, but it served well enough with his knees bent double and his frock coat rolled up to form a pillow,
He slept, but not for long. Was roused by the clop of slow-moving hooves out on the trail. Approaching from the east. As he swung his bare feet to the floor, the door from the bedroom opened.
Brodie was naked except for a filthy blanket draped over his shoulders. ‘If it’s a Texan come for you, you be sure to tell him I ain’t no friend of yours, son,’ he blurted as he scampered toward the door. But stopped short of it to lift down the Winchester from the wall brackets. Then retreated to his bedroom and left the door ajar.
Enough moonlight filtered in through the dusty window to show Barnaby Gold his way across the room. He was in less of a hurry than Brodie had been and reached the window just as the rider slowed the horse, as if to come to a stop in front of the way station.
The horse was a scrawny-looking grey, weary from a long time on the trail. The animal quivered with the equine equivalent of a sigh at the prospect of rest. But then the rider glimpsed
the face at the window, clearly seen in the moonlight. And the horse was viciously heeled forward again — lunged to the command with a snort In the instant before this, that rider — a mere dark silhouette against the low hanging moon — had seemed to be petrified by fear. Then leaned along the neck of the horse, head averted, to be carried at a gallop away from the station and in moments was hidden by the timber.
The figure astride the horse was tall and slim, attired in a somber-hued garment which seemed to be combined of a cape and a hood that billowed with the slipstream of the sudden burst of speed. An ankle showed above a low-sided boot and a hand was raised to hold the hood in place.
‘He gone-on by?’ Brodie called as the hoof beats receded out across the plain.
‘Seems she likes company as well as you do, Mr. Brodie.’ Gold replied as he returned to the sofa.
‘It was a woman? Headin’ out over the flats alone at night?’
‘Right, Mr. Brodie.’
‘Well, what do you know about that?’
‘Nothing.’
The bedroom door was closed and Gold resumed his relaxed position on the sofa. Waited to fall asleep again and it came soon. Lasted until the rat-tat-tatting of a Gila woodpecker at a dawn labor roused him. For a few moments he continued to lay on his back, watching the perceptible increase in light level as dawn broke.
Then something alarmed the woodpecker to flight. And Gold swung his feet to the floor and reached for his boots. For he had heard the same thing as the bird. A voice.
‘… you men. It’s said the old man who runs this place will shoot at anythin’ that moves, if he ain’t sure what it is.’
The words were spoken in a whisper, but in the stillness of early morning the voice carried. Maybe fifty yards — or more. Down the east trail. Reached the ears of Barnaby Gold clearly enough for him to recognize the speaker as Sheriff Walt Glazer.
‘I don’t figure the boy to be here, Walt. He’s smarter than anyone ever give him credit for.’ This was Dan Murchison, the Standing gunsmith from whom Gold had purchased the two Peacemakers.
Black as Death Page 10