by Robert Knott
“No, sir,” Danny said. “We’ve been all over hell.”
“We’re headed to the house,” Davy said. “Get after the sonofabitch tomorrow.”
We watched them ride off. Then walked on a ways.
“Don’t think Dalton ate the peaches,” Virgil said.
“You think he had help with the robbery?”
“Do.”
“You think like before, he had hands working with him?”
“That’d be my thinking.”
“Dalton came to town before with two gun hands, they got crossways, shot it out with Alejandro. That much we know happened.”
Virgil nodded.
“Yep,” Virgil said. “Dalton leaves town after that, lets everything settle down, then comes back, does it again.”
“Same scheme.”
“Yep.”
We continued on for a bit and turned the corner, walking down the street toward the Harvey House Hotel.
“Maybe he had the hands go to the house and hold Catherine hostage while his brother cleaned out the vault?”
“Maybe so.”
“So he’d save face.”
“You think this Dalton McCord was fucking Strode’s wife?” I said.
“Jedediah McCord’s wife, you mean?”
“That’s right, Jedediah.”
“Hard to know.”
“Sort of sounds like it.”
“Does.”
We passed by the Harvey House. I stopped and looked up to the hotel. Virgil stopped.
“Think I just might mosey in here, have a visit with Mary May,” I said. “See what she’s got to allow.”
Virgil looked up to the doors of the hotel. He nodded a bit.
“Mosey right on.”
33
Virgil walked on back to our hotel, and I stepped into the doors of the Harvey House. There was a grandfather clock that echoed in the wood-paneled lobby, letting me know it was nine o’clock when I walked to the front desk. The place was empty of any guest, and there were not any Harvey Girls behind the counter, just the night man with his head stuck in a thick book. He was a scrawny fella with a pleasant, almost sweet disposition. He smiled.
“May I help you?” he said.
“Sure. Like to see Mary May.”
He looked to the clock.
“Miss Chase, I believe, has turned in for the evening.”
“You believe?”
“I do.”
I showed the fella my badge.
“I’m here on official business.”
“What sort of official business?”
“No affront, but it’s no business of yours.”
He looked at me for an extended moment. Then he put a bookmarker in his fat book and slipped off the stool he was sitting on.
“Let me see.”
“Please do.”
“May I tell her who’s calling?”
“My name is Hitch. Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch.”
“One moment, Deputy.”
I watched as the scrawny fella scampered effortlessly up the steps, then I walked toward the doors leading into the restaurant. They were open, but the place was empty, closed for business, and there wasn’t anyone in sight.
I drifted around the lobby, looking at the paintings on the walls as I waited, and after some time the scrawny fella floated, dancer-like, back down the steps.
“Deputy Hitch. Miz Chase told me to tell you she would be down subsequently.”
“Appreciate it.”
“She said if you’d like to wait for her on the back porch, to please feel free.”
I looked through the restaurant toward the back porch, where we had previously sat with Wainwright.
“Believe I will feel free.”
He dipped his head politely, turned, scurried back behind the desk, and hopped back on his stool.
I walked among the tables and chairs of the empty dining room and out to the back porch. The evening was still warm, but the swift waters off the river cooled the humid night air.
I strolled the length of the porch, looking at the river. There were no lamps burning, but the high moon was bright and I could see its near-full reflection in the swift-moving waters. I sat on the rail and waited.
It took some time for Mary May to appear.
“Deputy Hitch,” she said.
I turned to see her. I took a step toward her.
She was standing in the doorway, and the light behind her gave me a good look at the outline of her curvaceous figure.
“Miz Chase. Hello. Sorry for the hour.”
“Not at all. No sheep counted.”
“Good to know.”
“It’s warm this evening.”
“Is.”
“What a pleasant surprise.”
“Better to know.”
“My knitting puts me in knots and not to sleep, I’m afraid.”
She moved a bit closer. Her blond hair was long and fell nearly to her waist. She was wearing a summer sleeping gown. A thin robe hung loosely from her sharp shoulders, and she was barefoot.
“What can I offer?”
“Just had a few questions.”
“Oh, well, only a few and not a few too many?”
“Maybe more than a few.”
“I hope I have an answer or two.”
“Me, too.”
“Providing they’re not too difficult. I fluster with difficulty.”
“I have some questions about Catherine Strode.”
“Oh . . . What would you like to know?”
“You know Catherine.”
A silent moment hung in the space between us, then she said, “As I said. Not well.”
“Well enough.”
Mary May looked down as she moved to the porch edge. She lifted up on her toes and slid her bottom on top of the rail with her back to a post. She gazed toward the river.
“Any reason you didn’t want to tell me that you know her?”
“What is it you want from me?”
I moved a little closer and leaned my hip on the rail facing her.
“You know she is gone? She’s missing.”
“I do know, yes.”
“You know anything that could help me find her?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure. If I did, I’d tell you.”
“Know Henry, too?”
“No. I’d only met him, said hello.”
“How’d you know Catherine was missing?”
“The girls informed me.”
“How’d they know?”
She laughed a little.
“They know everything.”
A breeze kicked up off the river and pushed some of Mary May’s blond hair across her face. She hooked her little finger under the long strands, pulling her hair back out of her eyes, and smiled at me.
“Everyone knows everything. About the bank, how badly hurt Mr. Strode was, and now he is gone. The girls tell me everything. They, of course, know from the posse boys. The girls and the boys, they talk.”
“Did you know Henry Strode’s brother?”
34
Mary May looked at me blankly for a moment.
“No.”
“But you know he had a brother?”
“Yes.”
“And how do you know that?”
Mary May looked out toward the river for a moment, then gazed back to me.
“I’ve not lied to you, Deputy.”
“Everett.”
“Everett,” she said with a smile. “I do not know Catherine well, but ever since I started working here, she looked up to me, like a big sister. She confided in me that she met someone she cared for.�
�
“Henry’s brother?”
Mary May nodded.
“You know him?”
“No, I never met him.”
“You ever see him?”
She shook her head.
“No. I didn’t. She just told me about him and that he was very handsome and he made her laugh.”
“Did she talk of leaving Henry?”
“She mentioned she would like to.”
“Where is she?”
“I honestly do not know.”
“What do you know?”
“She told me she met Henry’s brother and she had feelings for him, but that was months ago, and then one day she came to me crying like a baby. She was devastated. She told me he just left town. That is all I know.”
“Was this last year?”
Mary May thought for a moment.
“Why, yes. Winter. December, I believe. Listen, I don’t think it was her first infatuation. I believe she might . . . most likely had others, I don’t know. I told her to forget about him and to remember she has a fine husband with a fine job. A husband that loves her.”
Mary May slid off the rail.
“That’s all I know.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not sorry for her.”
“Meaning?”
“She has everything when so many have nothing.”
She took a step closer to me.
“I’ve had to fight every step of the way,” she said. “I do not suffer fools lightly.”
She smiled.
I smiled.
“I appreciate it.”
“You’re entirely welcome. Now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to return to my room and drink some wine.”
“You do that,” I said with a tip of my hat.
“This way,” she said.
She walked the length of the porch to a rear stairwell, then turned back to me.
“Coming?”
“You’d like me to come?”
“Mr. Hitch.”
“Everett.”
“Yes, Everett,” she said. “You’ve been further around than most have ventured in a gunnysack or a bushel basket. I would not think I’d need to put out bread crumbs or draw you a map.”
35
By the close of the evening there had been no word back from La Mesilla’s sheriff, Vernon Talmadge. In the early morning, Virgil and I sat drinking coffee on the porch of our hotel. We were watching a bunch of crows across the street moving back and forth between a big boardwalk sycamore and the telegraph lines. They were making more noise than they should be making for such a pleasant morning as I filled Virgil in about the talking part of my evening visit with Mary May.
“So Catherine’s a woman with inclinations?” Virgil said.
“Might be.”
“And she had a hankering for the brother?”
“Seems,” I said.
“He have a real hankering for her?”
“Don’t know.”
“Got no idea?” Virgil said.
“Don’t.”
“Mary May?”
“She don’t know.”
“Maybe it was like Alejandro said,” Virgil said.
“He played with her?”
“Yep.”
“Could be.”
We thought about that for a moment as we watched a team of Roman-headed horses pulling a small load of freshly cut saplings.
“We do know she ain’t here,” I said.
“That we do.”
“Odds are better than good she left with him?”
“They are,” Virgil said.
“Willingly, maybe,” I said.
“Or might have took her?”
“One way or the other,” I said.
Virgil nodded and drank some coffee.
“Mary May?” Virgil said.
“She don’t know.”
“What more does she know?”
“Thinks Catherine’s spoiled.”
“’Spect she is.”
“Thinks Catherine’s a fool.”
“Got Catherine’s cards counted?” Virgil said.
I nodded.
“Told Catherine she had a good husband,” I said.
“She didn’t listen?”
“Hard to know.”
“Maybe Catherine got to thinking she had herself a geld,” Virgil said.
“Maybe.”
“And a stud comes along.”
“Might have happened.”
“Wouldn’t be the first mare to drift.”
“Or the first stud to move in.”
“Wouldn’t,” Virgil said.
“Not uncommon.”
“No, by God, it goddamn isn’t.”
“Fact, Mary May thought this might not be Catherine’s first trip out of the barn.”
“So,” Virgil said, “she does have herself inclinations?”
“That’s what Mary May said.”
“Maybe that’s what Comstock was saying but not saying directly.Maybe he knew something.”
“Don’t think he was fucking her?”
“Naw,” Virgil said, shaking his head.
“It’s a big town,” I said, “but it’s also a small town, so no telling about what’s said about the rich man’s daughter.”
“Or the banker’s wife.”
“People talk.”
“They do.”
“But inclinations are inclinations.”
“They are,” Virgil said.
We drank our coffee, thinking about inclinations.
I was certain Virgil was thinking about his Allie back in Appaloosa and her inclinations, because I know I was thinking about her and her inclinations.
It was never an uneasy proposition, Virgil leaving Allison French behind when we were away with a job to do. His leaving was not so much an uneasy proposition for Virgil as it was for Allie. More times than not, when we were away Allie would wander into some kind of compromising circumstance with some other fella interested in her wayfaring inclinations. In a few of those compromising circumstances the fellas didn’t fare too well in terms of still being upright and alive.
A half block away Hawkins rounded the corner on his bay, Blisters. Walking next to him on the boardwalk was Holly. They were talking with each other as they neared.
We could not hear what was being said, but Holly was shaking his head back and forth like he had a foul taste in his mouth.
Hawkins spotted us and kicked Blisters ahead of Holly some. He reined up in front of Virgil and me. Blisters shook his head hard with an obvious disfavor for the hard bit in his mouth.
“Got some real goddamn bad news,” Hawkins said.
“What?” Virgil said.
36
“La Mesilla’s sheriff, Vernon Talmadge, was shot and killed last night,” Hawkins said.
Virgil looked at me and grimaced a bit.
“Is bad news,” I said.
“Is,” Virgil said.
“Vernon was a good lawman,” Hawkins said.
“Who done it?” Virgil said.
“Got some other bad news,” Hawkins said.
“Dalton do it?” Virgil said.
“No,” Hawkins said. “But it was some of Dalton’s men.”
Virgil shook his head.
“How’d it happen?”
Holly arrived in front of the hotel. He sat quickly on the steps. He was sweating and breathing hard from his brisk walk.
“Vernon was killed,” Hawkins said, “when him and one of his deputies were involved in a skirmish with a handful of Dalton’s men at a La Mesilla billiard joint.”
“You tell him I didn’t want him to do nothing?”
“We did,
” Holly said. “Most certainly.”
Hawkins shook his head.
“But he must’ve done something anyway,” Hawkins said.
“Something that got him killed,” I said.
Holly nodded and took a deep breath.
“Seems Dalton McCord has been a fixture in La Mesilla for a while,” Holly said.
“Dalton part of it?” Virgil said. “He there?”
“Don’t know,” Hawkins said.
“Apparently,” Holly said, “Dalton McCord has a gang of men he runs with that have been giving the authorities fits.”
“Dead ain’t fits,” Virgil said.
“No,” Holly said. “Indeed, of course not.”
“Where are these men now?” I said.
“Don’t know,” Hawkins said.
“Well, what should we do?” Holly said.
Virgil looked at me and I looked at him.
“Goose waddled out of the gaggle,” Virgil said.
“Did.”
Virgil looked at Holly.
“Get a message back,” Virgil said. “Tell them not to do nothing till we get there.”
Holly nodded.
At half past nine in the morning Virgil, Hawkins, and I rode to La Mesilla to find out what we could about Dalton McCord and his gang.
The two-rut road from San Cristóbal to La Mesilla was a fairly easy ride. The sun was hot, the land was dry, and the wheat-colored dirt blew easy as we rode. We traveled through six small towns and settlements on our way to La Mesilla. In each we passed through, we made inquiries with various folks, asking if they’d seen Henry Strode.
La Mesilla was a crossroads town, the intersection of the Butterfield and the Santa Fe stage lines, and was the destination of many, but mostly young men seeking festivities. It was a happy, lively place, with more drinking, gambling, and whoring than most towns its size. In fact, you could even say the major commerce in La Mesilla was drinking, gambling, and whoring. The town was spread out and the place was open for business twenty-four hours a day.
We arrived in La Mesilla one hour past sundown, and the streets were already a bustle of activity. We passed an open-air saloon where a Mexican brass band was playing some fandango. Dancing girls in colorful dresses were kicking up their feet to the music. The girls resembled a lively flock of starlings swerving around one another as they snapped castanets and banged on tambourines.