Widowmaker Jones

by Brett Cogburn

  “Who are these men?” Fonzo asked.

  The sergeant tapped the badge on his vest. “We’re the law hereabouts, son.”

  “I guess you didn’t find Cortina,” one of the other Rangers said.

  “Oh, he’s a hard one to catch,” the judge answered before any of the others could.

  Newt glanced at the judge with a curious expression, but didn’t say anything.

  “Too bad,” the sergeant said. “That’s some kind of reward they’ve got out for him.”

  “Reward?” Kizzy asked.

  The judge gave her his most sheepish grin and avoided looking Newt’s way.

  “The governor of Texas put five hundred dollars on Cortina’s head, and the railroad put another five hundred on him, dead or alive,” the sergeant answered.

  “Is that a fact?” Newt’s attention was solely on the judge.

  “It is, indeed,” the sergeant said. “Cortina and his bunch robbed a mail car outside of Fort Worth three months ago and killed the express agent.”

  “And how long has that reward been out?” Newt asked.

  “Since about a month after the robbery.”

  The judge eased his horse forward. “Now see here. Let me explain.”

  “I ought to have shot you back there,” Newt said. “I don’t suppose you were planning on telling me about this reward?”

  The judge spurred his horse toward the Rangers. “Get ’im, boys!”

  The Rangers didn’t move. When the judge reached them and turned his horse around, the sergeant pointed at Newt.

  “We don’t have any papers on him,” the sergeant said.

  “What about the murder of Amos Redding?” the judge said. “He’s wearing Amos’s gun and hat.”

  The sergeant shook his head. “We sent a man up to Fort Stockton. Seems like the Widowmaker here was telling the truth. Cortina killed Amos somewhere north of the fort, and the way that post commander told it, the Widowmaker brought Matilda to the fort and then saw her on her way to El Paso with a wagon train of freighters.”

  Newt relaxed slightly. “I thought there for a minute that I was going to have trouble with you Rangers, and I have enough trouble to do me for a while.”

  The sergeant pointed in the direction of the river. “Y’all have trouble over there?”

  The four of them looked at one another and shrugged. Newt managed a weary smile and said, “Not much.”

  “Who are these two with you?” The sergeant was talking about Kizzy and Fonzo.

  “Why, they’re good friends of mine,” the judge said. “That boy in the tall hat is Fonzo the Great, and she’s his sister, Buckshot Annie, late of the Incredible Grey Family Circus. Ain’t you ever heard of them?”

  The Rangers led the way north, as they knew the country. Before long, the judge’s horse fell back behind the rest, and Newt reined up and slowed until the judge rode alongside him.

  “How come you didn’t tell those Rangers what you’ve got in those saddlebags?” Newt asked.

  The judge scratched at his whiskers as if he were in deep thought. “Could be they would hit me up for a share of the reward. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know, and a thousand dollars is a hefty sum.”

  “Speaking of that reward, how are you intending on splitting it with me?”

  “How’s fifty-fifty suit you?”

  “How about sixty-forty, since I was the one that got Cortina?”

  “You’re a bald-faced highwayman if you think I would go for that.”

  Newt patted the Smith on his hip. “Sixty-forty, and maybe I could forget about how you tried to double-cross me back there with Don Alvarez.”

  “There’s no way I’m going to be able to keep those Rangers in the dark, and I’ll have to give them a cut out of my share, like it or not.”

  “You poor thing. Have we got a deal? I’m still of a mind to shoot your sorry ass.”

  The judge nodded slowly. “What’s a hard case like you gonna do with six hundred dollars? You’ll just drink it up in some dive or spend it on a spree. You ought to think on going partners with me. Invest your money, you know, and let it work for you.”

  “That’ll be the day.”

  The judge pulled a cigar out of his vest and spent three matches trying to get it lit. When it was finally going, he shifted it to one corner of his mouth and said around it, “I never should have let you talk me into going to Mexico.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  They waited on the porch of the depot house at Langtry, Texas. Fonzo was helping load the horses into a stock car, and Newt and Kizzy were alone for the moment. She stood with her arms folded across her chest and her back to him on the edge of the decking next to the train. She had long since changed out of her circus costume, and she looked like someone else altogether in her new yellow dress and the prim little bonnet on her head. She looked like any other woman, but he knew she wasn’t. A traveling valise lay at her feet.

  “You haven’t said a word to me since we left Las Boquillas,” Newt said.

  “I don’t have anything to say to you,” she answered, still not looking at him.

  He stepped beside her. “Yes, you do. Say what you’ve got to say.”

  She turned to him. “You cut off that man’s head. What kind of man can do that?”

  “Don’t make it sound like I enjoyed it,” he said.

  “And you couldn’t have brought Don Alvarez the body?”

  “My horse was worn out and half-dead, and barely in shape to carry me. You wanted your brother to live, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, more than anything. But I couldn’t have done what you did.”

  He looked away. “I’ve always been able to do the hard things.”

  “Where will you go now?” She turned her back on him again.

  “I’m still thinking on it. What about you? What’s waiting for you in San Antonio?”

  “The newspapers say Bill Cody’s company is in Chicago. I’m going to send him a wire, and if he will still honor the offer he made us a year ago, we’re going on to join his show.”

  “That sounds like a good plan.”

  “You ought to go back East, too,” she said. “This wild country isn’t good for you.”

  “I’ll get by.”

  “I won’t forget what you’ve done for me and Fonzo.”

  “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “I do.”

  “What is it you said about folks like me? Outsiders? Gadje? You go on about your business and forget about the likes of me.”

  She turned back to him with her eyes wet and unblinking. “Talk your tough talk, Widowmaker Jones. Go ahead, I don’t care. You are not Roma, but you aren’t gadje, either. You’re a violent man, but I think you are my friend. I haven’t had many friends.”

  Newt was about to say something else, but the judge walked up. He looked at the white horses Fonzo was helping the train crew load. “Miss Grey, I’m plumb sorry you didn’t get all your horses back. What kind of a circus act are you going to have with only two horses?”

  Kizzy looked at Newt instead of the judge when she answered. “I’ll get by.”

  The judge tipped his hat to her. “I must say, for a Gypsy girl, you aren’t half-bad.”

  She took up her valise and put a foot on the steps to the passenger car before she hesitated. “For a crooked old judge, you aren’t so bad yourself.”

  The judge handed Newt a beer while they watched her go inside the passenger car. Newt was surprised how cold the beer was, and the judge noticed his expression.

  “Bought a load of ice off the train this morning.”

  Newt hesitated to take a drink of the beer. “How much is this costing me? Last time I had a beer in your place, it cost me plenty.”

  The judge laughed. “This one is on the house.”

  “So long, Judge.”

  The judge squinted at him. “What are you going to do in San Antonio?”

  “Never been there, and thought I would see the sights.�
�

  “You don’t have a clue, do you? You’re only going along to see that Gypsy girl on her way, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You remember my offer. I can put in a good word for you with the Rangers.”

  “Thanks, but I believe I’ll pass.”

  “You were a sentimental fool to give those circus kids your share of the reward,” the judge said. “You ain’t ever going to have two dollars to rub together if you keep giving your money away.”

  Newt took up his bedroll and then he looked to make sure the Circle Dot horse had been loaded in the stock car before he went up the steps into the passenger car. Fonzo was going to ride with the horses, but Kizzy sat on a bench seat alone near the rear of the car. When Newt reached her, she made room so that he could slide past her and sit beside her next to the window. Neither of them said a word.

  The window beside Newt was open and he looked down the street at the hanging pole that the judge had put up for Cortina. The judge was still on the depot porch talking to two new arrivals to the town.

  “New to the West, are you?” The judge had his arms on both of the men’s shoulders, guiding them toward his saloon. “Well, I’ve got a sight for you. For a dollar, you can look at the head of Javier Cortina, the wickedest bandit that ever drew a breath. While you look, I’ll tell you the story of how I ran him down.”

  The train started forward with a hiss of steam. Snippets of the judge’s conversation drifted to Newt as if in a dream.

  “Yes, sir, that’s me, the law west of the Pecos . . . law and order every time, that’s what I say . . . Cortina wasn’t the kind to be taken alive . . . I gunned him down with old Gabriel . . . You bet you can hold that shotgun. Old Cortina was tough, but he weren’t no match for . . .”

  The judge’s voice trailed off as Langtry disappeared in the window, and Newt watched the West Texas scenery roll past with his mind still on the hanging pole.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  The miles passed behind beneath them with the clickety-clack of the train’s wheels passing along the rails. Newt leaned his head against the window, trying to lose himself in the rocking of the coach, and trying to shut out the sound of the drunken man in the bowler hat near the front of the car. That very fellow was up in the center aisle, talking as loudly as he had been for most of the trip and bragging about everything he could think of. Several newspapermen near the man seemed to be hanging on his every word as if he were some kind of celebrity. The little Yankee beside him was trying to calm him down, but he was having none of it, and soaking up the attention.

  “If you weren’t such a wormy little fellow, I would paste you a good one on the ear,” the drunk said to the farmer sitting next to where he stood, and the same farmer who he imagined had done him some offense.

  The drunk was a big man. A little shy of six feet tall, but broad shouldered and deep in the chest, with a thick neck and the sense about him that he was as strong as an ox. He backed up to give the farmer he was bullying the room to stand, and handed his bowler hat to the little Yankee behind him, still trying to calm him down.

  The bully ran a hand over his close-cropped head, twisted one end of his pointed, handlebar mustache, and assumed a boxing stance with his fists held forward before him, as if he were posing for a photograph.

  “Get up and fight, or show all these people what a coward you are,” he said to the farmer.

  The farmer was half his size, and obviously wanting no part of a brawl with a man sure to hurt him badly. The farmer’s wife clutched his arm.

  “I never said you weren’t good,” the farmer pleaded. “I just said I thought Jem Mace was better than you back in his prime.”

  The bully turned enough so that he could see the newspapermen behind him, and so that they could hear him plainly. His clipped Boston accent was slurred from the booze. “A Brit best me? Why, you unpatriotic little sack of bones. There’s not a man in the world that can lick me. I’m twenty-seven and oh, with the gloves or without.”

  Newt only wanted to sleep, but he couldn’t ignore the noise anymore. He’d seen that kind before—braggarts who turned mean when in their cups, and the kind that tried to make themselves seem bigger than they really were by picking on those weaker than them.

  “Stupid drunk,” Newt said.

  A man across the aisle set aside the notebook he was writing in and snorted. “That stupid drunk is John L. Sullivan, bare-knuckle champion of the world. Why don’t you go say that to his face?”

  “So that’s the Boston Strong Boy himself, is it?” Newt said. “What’s he doing on a train in Texas?”

  “Where have you been the last year and a half? Don’t you read the papers?” the same man asked. “Sullivan is touring the country. He’ll fight any man for four rounds, and two hundred and fifty dollars to anyone that can beat him.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Eight good fighters have tried so far, and none of them have come close. For God’s sake, he knocked out Paddy Ryan in Mississippi two years ago, and Paddy was as tough as they come.”

  “You some kind of reporter?” Newt asked.

  “Galveston Daily News. Sullivan is on his way to our fair city for an exhibition match.” The reporter reached across the aisle for a handshake.

  Newt ignored the offered hand. Sullivan wouldn’t give up on egging the farmer into a fight, and he slapped the little farmer hard enough that the sound of it carried through the car. He made another of his ribald jokes, and some of those watching him laughed nervously.

  “Newt, don’t you do what you’re thinking,” Kizzy said. “You don’t have to be that way.”

  Newt rose and slid past her to get to the center aisle. He glanced at Sullivan and then back at her. “You look away, Miss Grey. Don’t pay me any attention at all.”

  “Don’t . . .” she started.

  “What was it the judge said? A man should stick to his talents?” Newt unbuckled his gun belt and handed it to the reporter he had been talking to, at the same time giving her a smile.

  While the reporter was still trying to figure out why Newt had given him his gun, Newt started down the aisle. The little Yankee trying to get Sullivan to quit picking on the farmer noticed him coming.

  “You aren’t an officer of the law, are you?” The little Yankee tried to block Newt’s way.

  “No.” Newt looked over the man at Sullivan.

  “Please pay Mr. Sullivan no mind,” the little man said. “I’m afraid he isn’t himself today.”

  “Get out of the way.”

  “I’m his fight promoter. I can get you his autograph.”

  Newt shoved the promoter into his seat and went past him. Sullivan still had his back turned to Newt and was too intent on the farmer to hear his approach. Newt cleared his throat and reached out and tapped him on the shoulder. Sullivan turned on him slowly, his drunken, stubborn face sizing Newt up.

  “What do you want, you big bastard?” Sullivan asked.

  “Leave that man alone.”

  “This ought to be good,” one of the reporters said. Several of the other reporters and those in Sullivan’s entourage climbed over the back of their seats to give the two combatants room.

  “And who the hell are you?” Sullivan asked, shoving one fat pointer finger in front of Newt’s nose.

  Newt slapped the hand away and threw a short, straight right into Sullivan’s cheek. The boxer staggered back two steps and fell to the floor, and the train grew as quiet as a church.

  “Widowmaker Jones, at your service,” Newt said, backing off and looking down at Sullivan.

  Sullivan groaned, and for a moment it looked as if he were down for good.

  “Look at that,” one of the passengers exclaimed. “He knocked the champ down with one lick.”

  But Sullivan wasn’t out. He groaned again and took hold of a seat back and slowly pulled himself to his feet. There was blood on his cheekbone, and a nasty snarl on his face. He lunged off-balance and clipped Newt with a hard lef
t hook, falling again in the process.

  The blow staggered Newt to one side and back three rows, but he caught himself against a bench. The passenger car swung dizzily before him, and he tasted his own blood.

  “Knock him out, Champ!” one of the crowd shouted. “Give ’im the what for!”

  “I’ll bet you five dollars Sullivan puts him down in the first thirty seconds,” another voice said.

  “What kind of fool do you think I am?” the first voice replied. “Look at the scars on that fellow. He’s a born loser if I ever saw one.”

  “I’ll take that bet,” Kizzy said, quieting the room again.

  Newt turned and saw her standing in the aisle at the far end of the car. Those cat eyes of her were wet again, and he wasn’t sure if it was resignation or worry that he read on her face. She was truly beautiful, and not a woman easy to forget.

  He gave her one slow nod of his chin and then turned and wiped the blood from his mouth and flexed his fists. A smirk of a smile revealed a broken tooth. “Just like old times.”

  Sullivan shuffled forward, crouched with his fists cocked and loaded. “You better fight hard, cowboy, or I’m going to beat you within an inch of your life.”

  The crooked, chip-toothed smile spread across Newt’s busted lips again, and he laughed bitterly and quietly. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”