Widowmaker Jones

by Brett Cogburn

  “Give me a couple of hours of sleep.” Newt didn’t untie his blanket, and simply lay down with his head resting on the saddle.

  “Do you think Don Alvarez sent men back for my brother?” Kizzy asked.

  Newt didn’t answer her.

  “Is he asleep?” she finally asked.

  “That he is. I think the Widowmaker is all tuckered out,” the judge said.

  “I can’t believe he stayed behind for us. I was wrong about him.”

  “Ain’t you learned that he’s a fool for any kind of a fight? That don’t make him a good man.”

  “I think he is. Maybe he doesn’t know it, but he is.”

  * * *

  They rode into the village of Las Boquillas a little before daylight the next morning. The only one stirring in the village was a small boy who met them on the road, taking a herd of goats out to graze for the day.

  The village was no more than a score of adobe and picket houses set on a low rise a couple of hundred yards above a shallow, rocky shoal on the river where the canyon walls petered out and allowed for a crossing. Newt led them in the gray morning light to a picket corral at the first home they came to, and dismounted with the fence hiding them from anyone like the goat herder who stirred so early in the morning.

  Newt left his companions and walked to the corner of the corral, looking down the road where it passed through the rest of the settlement. It was still dark enough that the village was nothing but shadows and silhouettes, and he had a hard time making anything out.

  The judge came to join him and took a seat with his back to the fence. “There’s a tavern at the far end, overlooking the river. Used to be a trading post, but the most recent owner has a few rooms to let out in the back of it. See anything down there?”

  “I don’t see any horses out in front of it, if I’m looking at the right building.”

  “Henry O’Malley owns that tavern. He’s an Irishman that deserted from the army during the war down here back in ’47. That old crippled devil is a has-been horse thief and outlaw himself, and the kind to be friends with Cortina.”

  Newt squatted down at the fence corner to wait for better light. “Cortina might already be across the river.”

  “If he’s holed up in O’Malley’s, there’s liable to be more of his kind in there with him. Nobody comes here unless they’re out of options, or on the run from something.”

  “Soon as the sun comes up, we go looking for him.”

  The judge produced a bottle and uncorked it and took a drink.

  “Where did you get that?” Newt asked.

  “Had it in my saddlebags. Want a pull? There ain’t much left.”

  Newt took the bottle and turned it up. It was tequila, and bad tequila at that. He grimaced at the bite of the liquor and then took another swig of it before passing it back to the judge.

  “Didn’t know you were a drinking man,” the judge said.

  “I try to stay away from it most times.”

  “I’ve found that work like this is easier when you’re drinking.”

  “You mean killing.”

  “I mean anything that’s hard. You either drink until you’re mean enough to do what has to be done, or you drink afterward to drown your guilty conscience.” The judge sloshed the contents of his bottle around and listened to the sound to gauge how much was left.

  Newt leaned around the corner of the corral again and scanned the settlement. There was nothing else moving.

  “Boy, you’re good at this stuff. Comes easy to you.”

  “You think I like this?”

  “I didn’t say you liked it. I said it was easy for you. You ought to quit trying to be such a do-gooder. Do you think that Gypsy girl yonder is going to be so thankful to you for saving her brother that she crawls in the sack with you? Stick to your talents, son.”

  “And what are my talents?”

  “Mayhem and destruction. It ain’t much, but there are few that are really good at it.”

  “I’m not who you think I am.”

  “You’re exactly what I thought you were when I first laid eyes on you. You’re a fighter, plain and simple. Maybe when this is over you ought to go back to boxing, or become a bounty hunter or detective, or maybe I could put in a word for you with the Rangers. Leave the easy living for the soft folks.”

  The judge turned the bottle up and finished it in one long pull before he pitched it in the weeds. “Did I ever tell you about a man I once knew? His name was Kirker, and he made his living hunting down Apaches and selling their scalps to the Mexican government. Not the nicest fellow you ever met, but crazy brave and never met no kind of trouble he thought he couldn’t handle. He rode a one-eyed horse and had a half-breed Comanche tracker that stood seven foot tall and could smell an Apache a mile away if the wind was right. I mind the time when old Kirker was . . .”

  “It will be daylight soon.” Newt cut the judge off before he could go farther with one of his outlandish tales. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, but the taste of the tequila wouldn’t go away. He hated the taste, but he would have taken another drink if there were any left. The judge was right about that, if nothing else. Liquor made some things easier. And knowing that Cortina might be close by had his nerves on end, and the judge’s constant chatter didn’t help things.

  “That’s fine if you don’t want to hear the rest of my story. Just fine,” the judge said. “How long are we going to wait? I never could stand waiting, especially with no one to swap yarns with. You want me to scout around and see what I can find?”

  Newt would have preferred that the judge stay put, but then he would have to listen to more of his talk. “If you do, stay out of sight as best you can. Cortina will spook easy if he’s around.”

  The judge went to his horse and took his scattergun off his saddle horn. He stuffed his vest pocket full of shotgun shells from his sack, and then went around the backside of the corral, hugging close to the fence.

  When he was gone Newt went to where the women were and found the Alvarez girl had lain down by the fence and was fast asleep. Kizzy sat close to her, holding their horses and petting her dog, who lay alongside her.

  “When it gets good and daylight, I’m going to go look for Cortina. Would you watch over the girl while I’m gone?”

  “I will.”

  “If something happens to me and the judge, you hole up here and wait for Don Alvarez. Have him take you back to Zaragoza with him.”

  “Okay.”

  Newt tried to think of something else to say, but everything he thought of seemed trivial or awkward.

  “Do you think you’ll find the rest of your gold?” she asked.

  “I doubt it. I told myself I came down here after it, but that never was all of it.”

  “You came down here to kill him.”

  He nodded. “I did.”

  “I thought I wanted to kill him for stealing our horses, but all I want now is to get Fonzo back and forget this ever happened,” she said. “I want to go somewhere so far away that I can forget everything.”

  “It will all be over before long, one way or another. If Cortina isn’t here, we’re going to have to see if Alvarez will trade his daughter for your brother.”

  “You sound so calm about it.”

  “It is what it is.”

  “After Papa died all I could think about was how bad we had it, and wished I could snap my fingers and everything would be like it had been. Nothing was good enough, and everything I thought I wanted I couldn’t have.”

  “And you found it can be a lot worse.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “Don’t you go down there after Cortina. Let him go. We’ll trade her for Fonzo like you said. If Don Alvarez has any intentions to treat my brother fairly, it has nothing to do with whether or not you catch or kill Cortina for him.”

  “No, I’ve got it to do.”

  “Is it worth getting killed? The only way to deal with men like Cortina is to stoop to their level. Is it
worth that? What about your talk of starting a wagon shop? You said you wanted to be someone different.”

  “In time.”

  “How old are you?”

  Her question threw him off guard. “I’ll be thirty-two come next month.”

  “Somehow I thought you were older.”

  “I feel older. Lord, I do.”

  “I don’t mean so much that you look older, it’s that you seem so sure of yourself.”

  “I’m not sure of anything. I haven’t done one thing since I left home that didn’t feel like I was gambling for stakes I couldn’t afford.”

  “Thank you for what you’ve done for me and my brother. If I never said it, I’m saying it now. Not many would have gone out of their way for a couple of Gypsies.”

  “You’re the first Gypsies I ever met.”

  “We’re not so bad, are we?”

  He cradled the Winchester in the crook of one elbow and gauged the light spilling over the mountains to the east, anxious to be doing something. Anything. She stood beside him, and he took the Circle Dot horse’s reins from her. Before he could go, she stopped him with a hand laid lightly on his forearm. When he looked down at her she tiptoed and kissed him lightly on the cheek. Before he could adjust she went to the far side of the other horses and left him alone.

  He led his horse onto the road and started through the village without mounting. A light burned here and there in a window, and a woman passed by him carrying a load of laundry in the direction of the river. She stayed wide of him, casting nervous looks back at him as she passed.

  The tavern at the far end of the village was seventy-five yards up the road, and made of adobe with the rafter poles protruding through the front wall. Smooth, peeled cottonwood posts held up a porch roof across the entire front of it, and two hitching rails were in front of the porch. There wasn’t a horse tied to either of them. It was likely that Cortina had his horse corralled for the night if he was anywhere around. Newt paused in the middle of the dusty road that served as a street, looking for another set of corrals or a barn. Maybe the first thing to do was to put Cortina afoot.

  “Buenos días,” somebody called out from inside the tavern.

  Newt had heard that voice only one time, but he recognized it. He stopped in the street with his Winchester held before him in two hands.

  “You took a long time coming,” Cortina called to him.

  Newt guessed that Cortina was looking out of one of the tavern’s windows or standing back in the shadows of the front door. Newt felt like easy pickings standing in the middle of the street like he was, and started walking at an angle to the nearest house on the same side of the road as the tavern.

  “Why don’t you hurry, gringo? You have come a long ways to find me,” Cortina said.

  Newt reached the house and hugged close to the wall in the shadows, still trying to locate Cortina’s position.

  “Come on, gringo.” Cortina’s voice was louder. “What do you think, Miguelito? The Widowmaker, I think he is scared.”

  Another man laughed on the opposite side of the street, somewhere behind what looked like a chicken house and pen. “I don’t think he likes us.”

  Newt wondered where the judge was, and he wondered how many more might be inside the tavern with Cortina. Miguelito hadn’t been with Cortina on the trail from Zaragoza, so they must have made arrangements to meet at the crossing.

  The rising sun had slowly spread across the street and spilled onto the tavern’s porch. He thought he saw a trail of cigarette smoke wafting from one window. He heard Miguelito move behind the chicken pen, and the rattle of his spurs. To Newt’s left there was a gap between the house he stood against, and the little yard fence surrounding the next house. He stepped into the alley, pulling his horse with him. A large prickly pear plant had grown up at the corner of the cedar stay and wire fence, and he peered through it at the chicken pen across the street. The tavern was out of his line of sight.

  “Come on, Widowmaker, if you want to play,” Cortina called out again. “I think I will shoot a little straighter this time.”

  If he went up the street they were going to have him in a cross fire and he wouldn’t stand a chance. And he wasn’t sure that there wasn’t a third man who had yet to speak up. Cortina had survived too long to chatter so and to be foolish enough to show all the aces he had up his sleeve.

  Newt draped the rein he was holding over the Circle Dot horse’s neck with the other one, and slapped the horse on the rump with the flat of his hand. It took only two steps and then looked back at him. He hit it again and took off his hat and waved it. The horse took two more trotting steps and then slowed to a walk and continued down the middle of the street.

  “Good horse,” Newt whispered to himself. “You keep right on going.”

  The village was so quiet that Newt could plainly hear the creaking of his saddle and the dull hoof sounds of his horse’s hooves on the street. He waited to make sure the horse was going to keep walking toward the tavern, and then ducked down the fence between the houses until he reached the back of them. There was a goat pen between where he was and the rear of the tavern, and he put a hand on top of it and vaulted into it. He crossed the pen keeping low, and easing through the bleating goats. When he reached the far side he rested his rifle on the top of the fence and studied the back of the tavern. There was a horse corral and a lean-to, brush-roofed shed behind it, and two unsaddled horses stood under the shed. Through a gap between the side of the tavern and the blacksmith shed next to it, he could see a little patch of the street. The Circle Dot horse was standing there.

  Newt vaulted the fence again and ran to the corner of the horse corral. It was made of stacked stone, little more than waist high. He stopped again with his rifle resting on its top and aimed at the back door to the tavern.

  “Ah, gringo, I never thought you were so tricky.” Cortina sounded like he was still at the front of the tavern. “Did you think I would shoot at your horse?”

  Newt found the gate to the horse pen and swung it open. He backed into the corral, keeping an eye on the door to the tavern while he got behind the loose horses, intending on driving them out the open gate. He was almost there when a bullet struck one of the shed posts next to his head.

  His ears were still echoing with the sound of the shot, and he was slapping at the sting of splinters and grit hitting the side of his face and dropping to the ground when a second shot smacked into the rock fence behind him. The horses milled around him, and he used the cover of them bolting out the gate to rise to his knees. He didn’t know where the gunman was, but the first thing he saw was that the back door to the tavern was cracked open. He worked the lever on the Winchester as fast as he could, sending two rounds into the doorway and another one into the single window next to the door. He rose and ran to his left and went over the rock fence in a long dive, rolling and scrambling back against it for cover as soon as he hit the ground on the other side.

  Another gun boomed somewhere on the street, and it sounded like the judge’s shotgun. A different gun cracked, and then the shotgun again.

  He took off his hat and eased it above the fence, but whoever was in the back of the tavern was too smart to fall for such a trick. On his belly, he crawled to the corner of the corral. The last thing he wanted was to peep his head around that corner, and he couldn’t make himself do it. Never lead with your head, was a thing any fighter should live by. He got his legs under him and stood quickly and glanced at the back door to the tavern before he dropped behind the fence again.

  In that brief glance, he thought he saw an arm stretched out through the open door. He chanced another look, this time with his Winchester taking quick aim. It was a white shirtsleeve that he had seen, and whoever was wearing that shirt looked to have taken one of his bullets. He started around the corner of the horse corral without dropping his aim on the doorway. A few steps closer and he saw the pistol lying in the dirt off the end of that dead man’s hand.

  The
body was blocking the door from swinging inward, and he placed a hand against it and shoved. It opened enough to barely give him room to pass through. He glanced down at the dead man, but it wasn’t anyone he recognized—just an old face missing teeth and staring up at him with a leering death grin. It was probably the tavern keeper that the judge had spoken of.

  Newt shoved the barrel of his Winchester into the crack in the open door and let it lead the way. He was only partway inside when a gun roared and a bullet struck the forearm of the rifle, knocking it from his hands. Two more bullets splintered the door, and he ducked out of the way and hugged against the outside wall with his back to it. He could hear Cortina laughing inside.

  “Come on, cabrón. Here I am.”

  Newt slid the Smith .44 from its holster and circled the building, approaching one corner of the front porch. When he reached the street, he glanced across it at the chicken pen where Miguelito had hidden.

  “You out there, Judge?” he called out.

  “I’m still alive and kicking,” the judge called out from somewhere behind the chicken pen. “I put some lead in Miguelito.”

  Newt craned his neck around the corner of the tavern and chanced a glance down the front porch. The instant he did it one of the front window shutters was knocked open, and Cortina fired off two shots at the sound of the judge’s voice.

  “You come for me if you want me, Bean!” Cortina’s voice had lost all its mocking calm. “I kill you if you do!”

  “You come out, Javier,” the judge called back.

  “I don’t think so, Bean.” Cortina fired twice more.

  Newt could see the end of Cortina’s pistol protruding outside the window and the blossom of flame each time he fired. He snapped a quick shot at the window, but the angle was too sharp. His bullet splintered the window frame and brought on a round of cursing from Cortina.

  “We’ll smoke you out if we have to,” the judge shouted.

  “You do what you must. I’m in no hurry.”

  “Keep an eye on the back side,” the judge called across the street to Newt.