Ahead of me, Braden’s horse stumbled. Braden said something. His voice was too low for me to make out the words. The horse righted himself and lurched forward. Small drifts of snow spilled and loose stones clattered over the side of the cliff. If the deputies showed up now, they couldn’t see us but this racket would tell them plenty. That’s how it was in these parts. Noise carried and ricocheted from one red rock to the next.
Some two hundred feet above the canyon floor now, we rounded a bend. The wind caught us, gusting, the snow driving into my face. Braden must have said something to his horse. The horse shook himself and his pace quickened a notch, the wind having swept the trail bare.
The path thinned. A misstep, and it’d be a long slide down to the canyon floor. Braden’s horse was wheezing like an old man by the time we got to the crest. We came to a standstill. Braden didn’t know where to go next. In a low voice, I said, “Keep to the left. We’re going down the backside.”
He nodded. He talked to his horse, coaxing him down the steep trail, rocks and snow tumbling over the side.
If I’d gotten Braden to Floral Ranch, this fix I was in wouldn’t be near as deep. But snow had covered the landmarks. I wasn’t able to find the cut that went to the ranch. The day’s light had gone fast.
Then we encountered the marshal.
I’d tried to figure a way to keep Deborah out of this any more than she already was. She was by herself, Samuel not home. Hard as it was, I couldn’t find a path around keeping her out of it. It’d go rough on us all if the deputies found the marshal untended. There’d be no explaining that, a man hurt bad and by himself in a cabin, the owner nowhere around.
Deborah’ll be all right, I told myself. She was small of frame but her spirit was sturdy.
We picked our way down the trail, the going slow in the wind. The marshal might die tonight. He might be dead right now. I’d heard the crack when his head hit the ground.
That was something else I couldn’t tell Deborah. She was better off not knowing even if it meant telling her a fistful of lies. Like how it was when we came across the marshal. I’d told her we found him in the snow. That was so but he wasn’t hurt. Braden and I were riding single file through a tight spot on the trail. Our snow tracks must have made it easy for the marshal to follow us. We had turned back, heading to Junction and me in a foul mood about it. Likely the marshal heard us coming or maybe he’d spotted us somehow. All I can say for sure is he was waiting for us, laying low on top of a flat, long boulder.
“Lewis Braden,” he’d called as we rode by him. “Stop right there.”
His words echoed, startling me so much that I looked heavenward. The voice of God. An angry God.
It wasn’t God. “I’m United States Marshal Thomas S. Fletcher,” he said. He stood on the boulder making him a few feet higher than us. “You’re under arrest.”
A marshal.
His rifle was drawn and aimed square at Braden who was ahead of me. “Throw down your weapons. Both of you.”
“Let him go, Brother,” Braden said. “It’s me you want.”
“Like hell I’m your brother. Throw your weapons. Over there.” He pointed the barrel of his rifle to our right.
His deputies had to be somewhere close. We had to be surrounded. I said, “Only got a knife.” My mouth had gone dry. I said, “It’s on my belt under my coat.”
“Get it,” the marshal said. “Move slow. Don’t give me a reason to shoot.”
I did like he said. My sheathed knife made a soft plunk in the snow. Braden’s rifle struck a rock when he dropped it. It clattered, spinning some, but didn’t go over the edge of the trail.
The marshal said, “Ride forward, slow, until I tell you to stop. Don’t do anything foolish.”
We did it all like he said to. We stopped when we were a few yards ahead of our weapons. He came down off the boulder, his rifle still pointed at Braden. He had us get off our horses and made us walk a few yards away. The marshal tossed some rope to Braden. “Tie his hands,” he said.
Braden said, “He doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
“Doesn’t look that way to me.”
“Do it,” I said to Braden. The marshal had a rifle aimed at me. His deputies, hidden somewhere, probably did too.
When my hands were tied, the marshal had another string of rope for Braden. “There’s no need for this,” Braden said. “I’ll come with you willingly.”
“Put out your hands. Wrist to wrist.”
“You have my word. I’ll come with you.”
“Your word’s no good.” The rifle was pointed at Braden’s head. “Put your hands out.”
Braden did. The marshal shifted the rifle under one arm and wrapped the rope around Braden’s wrists. I glanced around for the deputies. They should have shown themselves by now.
The marshal’s face was set as he knotted the rope. There was a grimness to him. If he took pleasure in capturing Braden, it didn’t show. He gave the rope a tight yank around Braden’s wrist and said, “Where is she?”
What? I thought.
Braden said, “She’s well.”
“Where is she?”
I said, “You know each other?” They didn’t pay me any mind. Braden said, “She’ll write you when she’s ready.”
“Where is she?”
“She doesn’t want you to know.”
“You’re lying.”
“It’s the truth.”
“You tricked her, filled her head with nonsense.”
“That’s not so.”
“Like hell. You lied to her, lured her in. A young girl.”
The marshal’s face was flushed red, his anger showing. I said, “Braden. What’s he talking about?”
They disregarded me. The two men stood so close that if the marshal used his gun there’d be nothing left of Braden’s head. Their eyes seemed to burn into each other. Then I was thinking, where were the deputies?
Braden said, “She came to me. There was no stopping her. She knew what she was doing, she’d made up her mind.”
“She’s sixteen.”
“That makes her a woman.”
“Damn you to Hell.”
The words rang, striking each cliff, condemning. A wildness came into Braden’s eyes, a kind of letting go of all reason. His hands were tied but all at once he swung at the marshal’s rifle, knocking it upward.
A shot exploded. My ears rang.
Braden shoved the marshal. The marshal stumbled backward, his feet tangling, his eyes wide with surprise. I expected him to regain his footing, to come back at Braden. But the ground was rocky under the snow. His arms flailing, he slipped, letting go of the rifle and his end of the rope. He fell. His head cracked against a rough-cut boulder, a brittle snap that echoed in the cliffs.
“God Almighty,” I said and that traveled the cliffs, too. Not moving, the marshal lay face up on the frozen ground. His coat was caught around his legs. His slouch hat was to the side of his face. My hands still tied, I pushed past Braden and dropped to my knees in the snow beside the marshal, my balance off with my hands done up.
The marshal didn’t move. I bent over him. He was breathing. I looked up at Braden. He shook his head, bewilderment splashed across his features.
I turned back to the marshal. Falling snow wet his face and stuck to his mustache.
“Can you hear me?” I said. I could hardly hear myself. My ears still rang from the rifle shot. I asked him again. He opened his eyes, then closed them against the snow. I used my teeth to loosen the rope around my wrists, tugging and pulling. Finally, I got myself free. I untied the stampede strings of the marshal’s hat, slid the hat out from under him, and held it to shelter his face from the snow.
“He’ll be all right, won’t he?” Braden said. He leaned over me. His breathing was hard and fast.
The marshal opened his eyes. “You stole her.”
“Stole her?” I said. “Braden. What’s he talking about?”
“That’s not how it
was. She came to me.”
“Liar,” the marshal said. “You took her.”
“What’s going on here?” I said.
Braden’s attention was fixed on the marshal.
“You know him, don’t you?” I said to Braden. “Don’t you?”
“He’s—” Braden started but just then, the marshal raised his head like he intended to sit up. Pain streaked across his features. His face squeezed up tight as a fist. He fell back, hitting his head again. He bit his lower lip like he was trying to stop from crying out. Water leaked from under his eyelids.
Braden dropped to his knees on the other side of the marshal. “Marshal.” There was panic in the word. “Marshal.”
Fletcher’s eyes fluttered open. His head was angled my way, and he fixed his gaze on me. He worked his mouth and said, “Where is she?”
His eyes pleaded with me like I had the answer. “I don’t know who you’re talking about,” I said. He tried to say something more but all at once, an oddness came over him. The muscles on one side of his face loosened and slipped out of place.
His right eye stared at me. I saw the panic. I knew what he was trying to say. He was begging for help. Lydia, my wife, had looked at me this same way when the baby took too long and she was nearly torn in two.
“Marshal,” Braden said, across from me. He hunched over his knees and put his bound hands on the marshal’s shoulder. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t.” The marshal’s face reddened. Braden moved his hands away. He looked at me and then again at the marshal. “Heavenly Father, what have I done?”
“Did you steal a girl?” I said.
“No. No.” His bound hands clasped, Braden rocked back and forth. “Heavenly Father, I didn’t mean to hurt him. Forgive me, forgive me.”
The marshal’s words about stealing a girl crashed in my head. And now this, the man hurt bad. I looked up at the cliffs sure that deputies would come pouring down.
The red cliffs were white with snow. Nothing moved. The snow hissed when it fell to the ground. I felt the cold eyes of mountain lions and coyotes watching and waiting. The marshal, I realized, had come here alone.
Braden kept up his chant about wanting forgiveness. The marshal’s face dragged on the left side. His dark eyes begged and his mouth twisted as he tried to talk.
If gentiles got wind of the fight, they’d go after Braden full force. And me.
We could leave the marshal. We could let nature do its will. He’d freeze to death if the coyotes and mountain lions didn’t get him first. Like none of this had happened, tomorrow I’d take Braden to Floral Ranch. This time I wouldn’t miss the landmarks. I couldn’t. When other lawmen showed up looking for the marshal and Braden, I’d play dumb. I hadn’t seen either of them. Maybe they got lost in the Wastelands. The lawmen would go back there to look for them. I’d offer to help. After that, they’d leave us alone.
Braden’s plea to God stopped. A calculating look had come over his face. He watched me. I figured I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking it, too. Leave the marshal.
It’d be easy to do. Whatever got to him first, the lions or coyotes, they’d carry off parts of him. That happened to the dead in canyon country. We could walk away like we’d never seen him. What was left of him might not be found until late spring. We could make like none of this had happened.
But it had. He was alive. I wasn’t a religious man, not like I’d been raised to be. That didn’t make me godless, though. I knew to do unto others as I would want them to do unto me. Those who were merciful, received mercy.
“We can’t leave him,” I said.
The marshal worked his lips, trying to talk. Nothing came out but it didn’t matter. I understood he was pleading for his life.
Braden didn’t say anything.
“We’re taking him back,” I said. Braden turned away and bowed his head. Calling on God for help, I figured. I got up, went back to where I’d thrown down my knife, and found it. Braden was still praying when I got back. The marshal’s right eye watched him.
Holding the knife, I said to Braden, “Put your hands out.”
That stopped his talk with God. Braden raised his head, turned toward me, and put his bound wrists out. I sawed at the rope with my knife. When his hands were free, I said, “Get his horse.” Braden did like I told him. My plans must have agreed with whatever God told Braden to do.
Now, the marshal was at my place and likely dying in my bed. On the way to the cabin, he’d sunk deeper within himself. He had trouble keeping his eyes open. His words were garbled. I should feel sorry for him. He was bad off. But the marshal not being altogether able to talk would not only save my skin but Deborah’s too. Before Samuel had left, I’d told him I’d look out for her. I intended to keep my word.
Ahead of me on the trail, Braden’s horse plodded. The cliffs were close here and the darkness was thick. The marshal’s words—you stole her—played over and over in my mind.
I pulled down my wool scarf, leaned over the side of my horse, and spat. I straightened, then rocked forward a little to ease my sitting bones.
Everything about this gnawed at me. Federal marshals didn’t track down outlaws. They ran their states’ courts and jails. They didn’t run all over the countryside. Their deputies did the hunting.
I’d been dealing with deputies since word got out that Floral Ranch was a hideout. For over four years, deputies waved arrest warrants in my face. They said I’d be next if I didn’t cooperate. Some of the deputies were mean-spirited. Some made threats when they didn’t like my answers. A few looked to take pleasure in carrying out those threats. Others went about their job grim-faced, like they’d rather earn their living another way.
Not once had a federal marshal come here. Not once did deputies make mention of a particular woman. Their concerns were the men they hunted. Until today.
The girl must be somebody important. Braden knew that. The marshal’s accusations made Braden spitting mad but he knew what the marshal was talking about. You stole her.
Quit thinking about it, I told myself. The less I knew, the better. That way I wasn’t part of it. Or at least not all of it.
I shifted the reins to my left hand. I was fooling myself. I was part of it, neck deep and paired with a man I knew nothing about.
I slowed Bob. We fell a few extra yards behind Braden. Using my free hand, I unfastened my coat’s top buttons and reached into my vest pocket. I took out the marshal’s badge. I’d found it when Braden and I brought the marshal into my cabin. It must have fallen out of his pocket. It was on the bed caught in the blankets. I’d nearly said something to Braden when I first saw it. He was at the foot of the bed pulling off the marshal’s boots and hadn’t seen the badge. Before I had much time to think, I put it in my pocket. I had to get rid of it.
On the trail with Braden ahead of me, I stopped. I ran my free hand along the side of the cliff. I found a crevice in the rock, one of thousands in the canyon country. I worked the badge into it and gave it a good push. It dropped into a deep hole inside of the cliff.
I urged Bob on. We left the crevice. I’d never know exactly where it was. Even in the daylight, one crevice didn’t look all that different from the others.
It was wrong what I’d just done. I’d stolen a man’s belonging and not just any belonging. I’d taken his identity, and him a man not able to speak for himself. It was wrong. But if he died without talking, we had to be able to say we didn’t know he was a marshal. We didn’t know his business and what he was doing here. Getting rid of his badge might save Junction.
That worked on me. The trouble we were in made me do things I wasn’t proud of.
A short, gnarly juniper that poked out upward from a crevice in the butte brushed against me. “Hold up,” I said to Braden. He came to a stop. “We’re here.”
CHAPTER TEN
NELS – THE HANDSHAKE
January 12, 1888
Braden and I got off our horses and went inside an opening in the side o
f a cliff. It was dark and cold. The opening was some thirteen feet wide and its depth was close to eighteen feet. On the back wall, someone—an Indian most likely—had painted a red stick figure of a horse. Near the opening, snow blew in and drifted over the rock floor. A few years ago, I told Samuel it looked to be a half-hearted cave since it wasn’t very deep. Samuel grinned and said it wasn’t a real cave since it didn’t go underground. He said it was a weak place in the sandstone. He called it a pocket that had been carved out by rain, wind, and time.
I lit a lantern I’d brought with me. In the flare of the light, Braden’s eyes looked as sunken as the marshal’s had.
Braden was a Saint, I didn’t doubt that. He said all the right things. But there were Saints who rustled cattle and some who robbed trains. Growing up in the church didn’t mean a man couldn’t do wrong.
Stealing a girl. That wasn’t anything like rustling cattle or robbing trains.
Braden left the pocket and went outside. I stood in the opening to keep an eye on him. He went to the edge of the trail and bowed his head. He was either praying or plotting, I didn’t know which.
Watching Braden, I went outside and took up trying to get his horse in the pocket. The animal had turned stubborn, though, and wouldn’t move. Braden didn’t seem to notice. I tussled with the horse thinking how most of us in Junction didn’t agree with plural marriage. Samuel said Junction was made up of in-between Saints and that was so. We wanted air between us and the church. Still, at the core we were Saints. We didn’t turn our backs on our own. The men who came here could be our fathers, brothers, or friends.
I should have known our luck would run out.
I worked with his horse, my patience on the low end. “I’ll do it,” Braden said, finally coming back to himself. He took the reins from me, then coaxed his horse into the pocket. His voice was low but I saw how easily his horse obeyed, how once he got the horse in place he stroked the sides of its face with both hands. Maybe this was how he’d gotten the girl to go with him.
I said, “Here’s the plan. If the weather breaks, I’ll be back at dawn to take you to Floral Ranch. Tonight, don’t build a fire. The deputies, if they come, might smell it. Or see it. The neighbors could too. I don’t want them knowing about you.”
The Glovemaker Page 12