Cotton's Devil (9781101618523)

by Dunlap, Phil

  They were both engulfed in laughter. Hogg was holding his stomach and quaking uproariously when he lost his balance and nearly fell into the fire. When things settled down, Lazarus once again got serious. Hogg leaned forward to catch every word, lest he miss something and find himself in trouble with the new judge.

  “Sounds like you’re givin’ the orders until Sanborn gets here. That right?” Hogg asked.

  “You can bet on it.”

  “So, what do I do next?” Hogg raised one questioning eyebrow.

  “First thing is, you got to lay low. Don’t draw no attention to yourself. It’d likely be a good idea for you to stay out here. Looks like it’s a darned fine place to hide one’s self. I’ll be makin’ myself scarce, too, in case anyone happened to see me club that deputy. When things are ready, then you can come back into town. Not before I let you know, though. Understand?”

  “Not sure I like that arrangement, Bellwood. Sanborn told me somebody’d be comin’ along to help, but he never said who. Anyway, a feller can get real lonely, not to mention damned hungry, sittin’ out here all by hisself.”

  “You’ll get used to it. After all, you stand to collect a tidy sum for bein’ patient and followin’ orders. My orders.”

  “Uh-huh. Sanborn hasn’t actually told me jus’ how much that tidy sum is goin’ to be. How about a hint?”

  Lazarus put his hand to his mouth, stroked his chin, and looked off into the distance. “Well, let’s see, how much money have you made in, say, the past ten years?”

  “Workin’ or stealin’?”

  “All told.”

  Hogg scratched his head, frowning as if deep in thought. “Hmmm, countin’ the ol’ miner I clubbed for his poke, the stage I hit where the only thing I came away with was some grumpy woman’s broach, the general store I broke into and took all the cash in the till, and, of course, the hides I took from a trapper in Colorado, I’d reckon about two hundred seventy-five dollars.”

  “That’s all?”

  “I did work for a ranch in Arizona for about three months, but that didn’t work out so well. I figured to get thirty dollars a month, but the foreman and me got into it over a card game and I had to shoot him. So I didn’t get paid for none of that time.”

  “The feller die?”

  “You ever see what a Remington forty-four can do to a man at close range?”

  Lazarus nodded his head.

  “Well, if you can follow orders, and I mean every order I pass on from the judge, he’s promised to pay you two thousand dollars.”

  Hogg gave Bellwood a wry grin.

  “You already knew how much the poke was, didn’t you?” Lazarus said.

  “Just makin’ sure I wasn’t getting’ cut out of any of my rightful ‘reward.’ ”

  Lazarus gave Hogg a scowl that suggested he didn’t like being played. He stood up to leave. “Now, you just make yourself comfortable here and I’ll be back in the morning with supplies—food, ammunition, and some blankets.” Lazarus wasted no time making himself scarce. He had a lot to do in preparation for the arrival of Judge Sanborn. Of course, part of his problem would be to stay clear of both the sheriff and his deputy. Sanborn had made it clear that Lazarus was to remain as anonymous as possible. He didn’t think he’d raised any eyebrows since his arrival, but even one tiny slip of the tongue could be disastrous.

  Until Sanborn got to Apache Springs with the tin badge he’d promised to secure for Hogg, even if it was one that carried no real authority, Lazarus would have to rely on Hogg to follow orders and stay out of trouble. As he rode back to the outskirts of town, his thoughts turned to what the judge would think when he found out his almost deputy marshal had foolishly allowed himself to get hauled off to jail in the first place. He knew there would be a price to pay for the man’s clumsiness, even if it did come from a phony judge.

  He grinned widely at the thought. He even began to hum to himself.

  Chapter 24

  Cotton felt his stomach start to growl the very moment he walked in the door. The smell of biscuits and beans cooking on his little stove in the back reminded him that it had been a spell since he tasted Emily’s good cooking. At the sound of the door closing behind him, Emily appeared from the small kitchen at the back of the house with a cup of steaming coffee in her hand. She thrust it toward him with a smile.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “There’s food coming,” she responded.

  At just that moment, they both whirled around at the sound of a familiar voice, an unexpected voice.

  “Smell coffee,” Henry Coyote said as he pushed open the curtain that divided the front room from the bedroom.

  Emily’s eyes were as big as saucers. She began to sputter. “H-Henry! Wh-what are you doing out of bed? Get back in there!” She tried shooing him back.

  “No need. Have coffee now.”

  “Right here, my friend,” Cotton said, handing his untouched cup to the Indian. Henry took it gratefully and eagerly. After each sip, Henry let out a gentle sigh.

  “Are you certain you’re well enough to be up?” Cotton asked.

  “Feel better. Ready to work.”

  “Work? Henry, you’ve been shot. You nearly died saving me. I-I can’t even think of letting you go back to work yet,” stammered Emily.

  “I have to admit, Henry, you look pretty darned good for a wounded man,” Cotton said. Emily shot him a serious frown.

  “No more wounded. Healed,” Henry managed between sips of coffee.

  “B-but, the doctor said you would need to rest up for a week…or more…t-to get your strength back,” Emily said. She settled onto the love seat, shaking her head, apparently unable come to grips with Henry’s miraculous recovery. She seemed dazed by all the events of the past few days—Henry, Cotton, and James Lee Hogg.

  “Have all strength I need.”

  Cotton wasn’t certain he was up to getting between Emily and Henry at the moment, so he decided the best course of action was to change the subject.

  “Excuse me, Emily, but I think I smell something burning.”

  “Oh, my…oh, damn!” She burst from the room muttering something about needing four hands and a kitchen big enough to turn round in. Cotton and Henry each gave a shrug.

  Emily couldn’t take her eyes off Henry while he ate. He wolfed down his beans and biscuits like he’d never been wounded, merely away on a long trip without food or water…or coffee.

  “Henry, I-I don’t understand how you can possibly have healed up s-so quickly.”

  “Spirit father visit while I lie on bed. He touch me where bullet go in. Take away pain.”

  “Spirit father?” Obviously puzzled by his explanation, Emily leaned on her elbows as she studied the Apache’s weathered face.

  “Spirit father protect all Apache,” Henry said nonchalantly.

  Cotton sat silently, marveling at Henry’s resolute belief in the healing powers of something he couldn’t see or touch. While Cotton had been raised in a religious home as a child, he had drifted away from churches and organized religion, although he knew that he’d come close to losing his own life too many times not to believe that someone or something had been looking over him. As Emily and Henry delved into Henry’s beliefs, Cotton tried silently to find some reason for his failure to continue his youthful education in a spiritual world. His conclusion was a rude awakening, a self-evaluation of his own shortcomings as a man with little more than a Colt .45 for protection. While he also saw small hope for humanity in general among the despots and criminals he dealt with on an almost daily basis, he had to admit he’d often yearned for evidence of the kind of peace his mother had gone through life with. She said she’d found it in that little black book she kept on the table next to her bed.

  “Cotton!” Emily’s sharp command yanked him from his reverie.

  “Uh, yes. What is it?”

  “Would you like more coffee?”

  “Oh, yes, that would be good.”

  As she went out to the
kitchen to retrieve the coffeepot, Cotton watched the old Indian’s face for signs of whatever it was he’d obviously missed. He saw nothing. He was left to his own devices, once again.

  “Where were you, exactly, while Henry and I were exploring my ignorance of his spirit father?” Emily said as she returned and sat down.

  “I’m sorry. I reckon I was doing the same thing with my own failings to follow a path my mother would have approved,” Cotton answered. “Kinda lost in my own thinkin’.”

  “Well, whether you think so or not, I’ll bet she’d have been proud of you.”

  Just after midnight, a figure moved stealthily in the shadows behind the general store. A dog barked from somewhere inside a house across the alley. The man moved tentatively, then deliberately, toward the one window at the back of the store. A moonless night made his mission more difficult, but it also kept others from seeing him and calling out a warning. In his left hand he carried two burlap bags. When, by feeling his way along the back wall, he reached the window, he placed one of the bags against the glass, picked up a rock, and struck the pane one swift blow. The glass shattered; the shards all fell inside. Standing as still as a cigar store Indian, Lazarus Bellwood waited for several minutes to see if the noise had awakened anyone. Since he heard nothing to indicate an alarm had been sent out, he proceeded. Feeling confident he’d accomplished his first goal, that of securing a way into the store to purloin the supplies Hogg would need, Lazarus reached through the now glassless frame and undid the lock at the top. He pushed the window open and crawled inside.

  Since he’d never been inside Russell’s General Store and Sundries before, he had to take it slow. There was no light, and stumbling into a stack of brooms or canned goods would most certainly bring about an unwelcome response from the owner, along with the inevitable shotgun. Easy, easy. He stopped short when his foot hit something that felt suspiciously like a pile of clothing, or perhaps blankets. He reached out to pull a piece off the top. Feeling it, he could tell it was a wool blanket. Perfect. He gathered up another for good measure. Then he moved toward where he figured a counter might stand. He kicked something metal that clinked and rattled to the floor. Damn! It was a bucket. When he bent down to retrieve it, his hand felt others just like it, only they were in a stack. If I’d knocked that over, I’d be a dead man now.

  He’d been fumbling around for nearly thirty minutes when he thought he heard a voice outside. Keeping as low as possible to aid him in feeling his way back to the window, he carried a sack full of items he’d secured from the shelves. Of course he had no notion of whether he had cans of peaches, tomatoes, or rat poison. He’d just have to take his chances. Even lighting a match was too much of a gamble for this midnight stalker. He found the window just in time and stuffed the burlap bag with his booty through and eased it to the ground. He was nearly through himself when he heard a loud voice.

  “Hey! You there! What’re you doin’ in the general store?”

  Lazarus scrambled to his feet and took off at a dead run down the alley. He’d left his horse tied up behind the hotel, but the voice seemed to be coming from somewhere in between. He’d have to make a quick detour around the gunsmith’s shop, cross the street, and slip down an alley between the sheriff’s house and a corral. No time to worry about being seen by the sheriff now, he figured. He was on a dead run with no intention of being waylaid by anything or anyone. He raced through the night.

  Perspiration was pouring down his face when he reached his horse, swung aboard, and galloped down the alley, into the main street, and headed out of town in a cloud of dust. He heard the crack of a revolver as he turned the corner before the town limits sign. Something sang by his ear. It could have just been an insect buzzing around, but he had the uncomfortable feeling it was made of lead.

  I hope to hell Hogg appreciates what I’ve gone through just to feed his belly, Lazarus thought.

  Chapter 25

  A white-haired old man with a wrinkled, deeply lined face sat uncomfortably in a curved-back captain’s chair waiting for an army officer to return, stressing his impatience by repeatedly tapping his cane on the floor. His bony butt was causing him discomfort because he’d been in that same position for almost three hours. He kept scooting around in the chair like an old hen on her nest. In front of the man was a wide, well-worn walnut desk. The nameplate indicated the desk was the official workplace of a Captain John Berwick. The captain’s post was obvious in its placement as the gatekeeper in charge of all visitors hoping to gain an audience with the governor of New Mexico Territory. Berwick and Berwick alone oversaw who did and did not get an audience with the territory’s most powerful man, Governor Lew Wallace.

  Berwick was no mousy clerk, but a powerfully built example of the army’s finest officers. A man with a voice that clearly demanded attention. And respect. And obedience. The captain had already informed the visitor that the governor was making no new appointments to the judiciary. That should have been sufficient, but not for the crusty old Arthur Sanborn. Fidgeting in his seat in vain to find a comfortable spot, the old man had insisted that if the governor would only see him for a few minutes, he was certain an exception might be made. His efforts, his insistence, his excuses, his references were all made to no avail. Eight times he’d sent the captain back into the depths of the cavernous room. And eight times he’d returned with the same answer. The captain came out of a wide set of double doors behind his desk, frowned at the old man, then strode to the desk.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Sanborn, but, as I’ve already told you many times, the governor has no interest in seeing you, let alone bestowing a judgeship on you. I’ll not bother him again. So, if you’ll allow me the courtesy of escorting you out, I’d be happy to suggest several fine hotels or rooming establishments. It is rather late in the day and not the best time to be setting out on a journey.”

  The old man pushed himself out of his hard chair, rubbed his backside, frowned, and nodded his acceptance of his fate. Arthur Sanborn’s options had been exhausted. He must continue his quest to destroy Sheriff Cotton Burke without the cover of legitimacy. He didn’t see it as the end of the world. He’d lied his way into positions of power and influence many times before, and he could do it again. It might take a little more time than he’d have liked, but since a dead sheriff was his goal, he’d wait for hell to freeze over to see that goal accomplished. He muttered under his breath as he walked from the Territorial Government Building in the capital, Santa Fe.

  I’ll get him for you, son, don’t you fret. I swear it on your grave.

  Sanborn slowly strolled down the street, peeking into windows, surveying the merchandise. There was nothing he had in mind to buy, but perusing anything and everything was simply his way of clearing his mind. He needed a new plan. As he was walking by a bookstore and bindery, an idea came to him. If I arrive in Apache Springs with a bound set of legal opinions, the mayor should take me at my word that I’m a judge. Why would any man travel around with volumes of books on the law unless he was well versed in their content? Only a fool would do otherwise. And Arthur Sanborn is no fool.

  He chuckled at his evaluation of himself. When he entered the store, a bell tinkled above the door. In the back of the room filled with stacks of books, empty book covers, and presses, upon hearing the announcement of a customer, a man rose up from behind a pile of newly bound volumes.

  “Good day, sir, what might you be interested in? Tales of the Knights of the Round Table, perchance? Or something documenting the exploits of the settlers in Jamestown and their encounters with savages?”

  “Neither, I’m afraid. My interests lie with the law. I’d like to see whatever volumes you might have of cases, legal opinions, and trials—anything postwar.”

  “Ahh, a learned man, eh? Well, sir, I don’t believe I have anything concerning actual cases, but let us see if there isn’t something here to accommodate your taste for the law. Follow me to the rear and I’ll show you what I have.”

  Before they
even reached the stack the book purveyor had in mind, Sanborn spotted several leather-bound books that struck him as appropriate for his subterfuge. The covers had been embossed with a gold leaf title that read Laws of Nature. The word “Laws” was centered and quite a bit larger than the rest of the title. He felt certain he could scrape “of Nature” off with a sharp penknife. No one would know the difference. Besides, spending his valuable time reading anything in a bunch of dusty old books was the very last thing he intended to do.

  “I’ll take those two there,” Sanborn said with authority. I only need for people to think I’m a real judge for one very important pronouncement, he thought. Then I’m gone.

  The bookseller gave him a curious smirk, then realized that his best bet was to acknowledge the man’s keen eye, take his money, and get back to his task of cataloging the store’s contents. He shrugged, picked up the two books, and asked if his customer would like them wrapped in brown paper.

  Sanborn nodded and proceeded to fish a wad of bills out of his vest pocket. He asked the man what the price was, agreed to it, and handed over the precise amount. He left the establishment with a crooked grin on his craggy face.

  Sanborn continued along the boardwalk, ever cognizant of his quest to find any article that might help him convey an air of legitimacy as a judge. When he came to a clothing store, he noticed a stylish black Chesterfield coat. He went inside to inquire as to the price. The clerk told him it just so happened he’d come at a very opportune time, as the coat in question had been placed on sale that very morning. It had come in with a minor flaw in the broadcloth, and he had been forced to reduce the asking price. Sanborn eagerly shelled out the proper amount and left the store quite pleased with his purchases thus far. He was wearing the coat as he passed a cigar store.

  A couple of cigars sticking out of the breast pocket of this fine coat should impress anyone who sees me, he thought, turning in to the store. He was beaming as he continued on. Approaching the jail and the office of the town marshal, he eased up a bit. The sudden reluctance he felt to confront a lawman, even by accident, unnerved him. He started to cross the street to avoid any possible contact, then thought better of it. He continued on in a manner that suggested he was a visitor to the community and one merely curious about its many offerings. As he came to the door to the jail, he noticed it was open. He stopped to peruse the meager furnishings. His gaze fell to something quite unusual: a young deputy had laid his head on his desk and was sound asleep. In fact, he was snoring loudly.