by Ben Boulden
Father Pacheco smiled humorlessly. He moved uncomfortably on the small, unstable chair. “Jed Skousen?” The priest looked at the table. Fidgeted with his hands for a moment. “Jed will be there, too, I think. But it’s hopeless to think you can simply walk in and take him and Adalina.”
J.D. glanced at Kate. She leaned intently towards Father Pacheco. Her brow furrowed, the small dimple in her chin revealed as it often did when she was angry. J.D. recognized the look as stubborn resolve and he knew they wouldn’t be leaving this broken country without Jed, Adalina, and Beth in tow. No matter the pain or personal danger involved.
“Nothing is hopeless, Father,” Kate said.
The priest nodded, touched his bandaged head. “This was a good place once. The people proud, if poor. Then…” His voice faltered and his eyes seemed to lose focus as he wrestled with a painful memory.
“How do we get to Skousen?” J.D. asked.
Father Pacheco cleared his thoughts with a shake of his head, looked directly at J.D. A shimmering intensity lighted his eyes. “No one here will help you. They have already lost too much and they cannot lose more. Do you understand?”
“Will you tell us what we need to know?” Kate asked.
The priest nodded. “You’ll need to draw Skousen from his lair.”
“There’s no way we can get inside his ranch?” Kate asked.
The priest looked at Kate, surprise in his eyes. “Of course.” He worried at his bandaged head, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. “There is a rumor of a backdoor into his valley. Skousen’s ranch is in a large box canyon. There is one way in and one way out. But if the rumor of the rear entrance is true? Maybe there is a chance.”
J.D. said, “Who would know where it is?”
“There is an old man. His name,” the priest shook his head, “I know him only as Brother Reed. He was Skousen’s partner for many years. But there was a fight, over a woman—more a girl, really. Skousen pushed Reed out. He took everything. Including Reed’s wives.
“He also got the girl.” Father Pacheco sighed, shook his head. “It is a sad story, my friends, but not unfamiliar in this desolate place. The girl. She was sixteen, perhaps seventeen. A beautiful girl with golden hair. The daughter of a farmer who couldn’t pay Skousen’s and Reed’s water tax. In relief of the farmer’s debt, the men accepted his daughter. They both wanted her as a wife, but only Skousen succeeded.”
“Sounds like Reed has reason to hold a grudge,” J.D. said.
“What happened to the girl?” Kate asked.
“A few years ago,” Father Pacheco said. “She birthed a dead child. A boy. She went mad with grief. She walked the desert at night, sobbing, howling, shouting. Then she disappeared. There are rumors Skousen killed her. Or more likely, had one of his men do it. But no one knows.”
“Are her parents still here?” Kate asked.
Father Pacheco shook his head. A glimmer of wetness appeared in the corner of one eye. “The mother. The girl’s mother. She was lost without her daughter. She never saw her again after Skousen took her to the marriage bed. It broke her. The loss. The betrayal of her husband’s complicity. Once a beautiful woman, she stopped tending herself. Her hair became wild and snarled. She stopped eating. Then one night the farmhouse burned to the ground. Nothing left but embers. Most people think she killed her husband and then herself with the fire.”
Kate reached to Father Pacheco, rubbed the back of his hand. “What do you think?”
A grim smile curled his lips. “Me? I don’t know, but I hope both she and her daughter found some peace from the horror Skousen brought to their lives.”
Kate looked at J.D., hard determination on her face. “We need to stop this.”
J.D. nodded. Then said to the priest, “Where can we find Reed?”
“He lives alone in a cluster of ruins up the creek from Lugar Bonito. An abandoned Indian settlement. Some say he’s addled, but the few times I’ve seen him, understand I do not seek him out, he’s still sharp and mean as ever.”
“I think we need to rattle Skousen’s chain,” J.D. said. “We’ll start with a visit to his ranch—”
Kate interrupted, “You’re thinking we can find the back entrance?”
“Probably not on our own, but this first visit we won’t need to.” J.D. grinned. His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. “I want to see the place. And make a little noise to put Skousen on notice. Maybe he’ll make a mistake and crawl out of his hole.”
“Or push him deeper down that hole,” Father Pacheco said.
“Maybe,” J.D. said, “but we’re going to apply pressure to him in a few different ways.”
“How?” Kate said.
“We’ll start at the ranch. Then make a fuss in Small Basin. See how Sheriff Allred reacts. And we’ll take something Skousen wants.”
“Like?” Kate asked.
“Beth Jensen.”
CHAPTER 12
J.D. passed the monocular to Kate. She slowly scanned the canyon below. The silver glow of the full moon enhanced the glass’s nighttime usefulness. The canyon floor littered with structures, large and small. Another box canyon, smaller than the main canyon, its narrow opening fenced, was dotted by the slow moving forms of cattle. The herd surprisingly large for the arid landscape. A creek wound across the back of the property, cutting a deep, uneven trench in the moon-filtered features of the canyon. A surprisingly large house, tucked at the base of a towering cliff across the narrow canyon from the cattle, the only source of light. Its windows glowed warmly with lamplight.
“It looks quiet,” Kate whispered.
J.D. gently squeezed Kate’s arm to draw her attention. He pointed to the mesa top directly across the canyon where Kate saw a flash of blue steel reflect the moon’s light before hearing the scuff of cloth and leather on rock as the guard adjusted his position.
“The second I’ve seen,” J.D. whispered directly into Kate’s ear. “There’s another a few hundred yards south, same side.”
Kate lowered the looking glass, collapsed it silently, placed it in a narrow crack on the mesa’s sandstone crown. The appearance of two guards, and their close proximity to each other, meant there would be more spread across the broken landscape and use of the monocular risked a moonlight reflection and discovery. She studied the canyon walls looking for broken patterns in the landscape, unexpected movements, listened for unusual sounds. In the distance, maybe a quarter mile away, an orange flash briefly illuminated the sharp angles of a man’s face and then faltered into a small red glow.
“Three,” Kate whispered.
A movement on the canyon floor caught Kate’s attention. A shadow moved slowly, furtively, at the base of the cliffs that formed the pasture. It was joined by another before breaking apart and disappearing into the dark canyon shadows.
A white-hot flame pierced the night. It stretched like lightning across the narrow canyon before its thunderous report shattered the night’s silence. The bullet whistled frighteningly close to Kate before impacting with a sharp destructive thump against the sandstone no more than three feet away. A cascade of rock shards stung her arm and face. She rolled away from the bullet’s impact, trying to find cover behind the narrow lip of rock at the mesa’s edge. She pulled her rifle to her shoulder, aimed its heavy barrel across the canyon and pulled the trigger, the Winchester’s harsh boom and heavy kick reassuring to Kate.
J.D. loosed two quick shots in return. His rifle bucked, flame reached across the gorge. He knocked another round into the rifle’s chamber, rose to his knees and fired again. He grabbed Kate by the arm, pulled her up.
“It’s time to go!” His voice a harsh whisper.
J.D. levered another round and fired across the canyon. He stood and retreated away from the edge of the cliff. Kate fired two covering shots, without aiming, picked up the looking glass and followed. Their horses waited more than a quarter mile away and the night was suddenly alive with activity; men shouted, rifles boomed, and the rush of boot leather on ro
ck. The cruel light of the moon twisted the landscape into a macabre graveyard. A place where no passion other than killing existed.
Kate moved quickly across the receding rock surface onto the sparsely sage-covered sandy dirt of the mesa top. J.D., several yards ahead with his back humped, knees bent and rifle held loosely under his arm. He jumped to his right as a bullet smashed into the ground a few feet ahead; dirt exploded into the air followed closely by the gun’s deafening blast. The bullet’s impact and the rifle’s explosive sound occurred so closely together that Kate knew the shooter was near. She went to one knee, the comfortable grip of the Colt in her hand, scanned the area.
Another shot. A punch of dirt showered J.D.’s trail. Kate, seeing the white hot rifle flash, pivoted to her right and pulled the Colt’s trigger once, twice, three times. In one swift motion she jumped away from her shooting position and ran several yards before she ducked behind a grand sage. She looked ahead, saw J.D.’s retreating form, waited a beat and followed. The night sounds dead to her ringing ears.
J.D. halted, lowered himself to a prone shooter’s position, the Winchester’s butt plate hard against his shoulder, his elbows in the dirt, both eyes open. He looked for a target. Kate was more than a hundred yards behind, cutting a trail from one sage to another. She ran with bent knees, her back horizontal to the ground. The sounds of her approach echoed in the night’s sudden silence. She was a shade of color in a black and white world. A movement in J.D.’s peripheral vision caught his attention. He smoothly rotated the rifle, closed his left eye, sighted in on a long narrow shadow, took a breath, exhaled, pulled the trigger. A scream filled the wake of the bullet’s explosion.
J.D. rolled a few feet to his right, regained his shooting position and continued to scan the nightscape for targets and threats. Kate ran past him, her Colt held firmly in her right hand.
“Keep going,” J.D. said.
More movement caught J.D.’s eye. The form of a man appeared at the edge of the mesa, then disappeared behind a pillar of stone. J.D. snapped two shots at the target, the lead bullets scoring the soft sandstone. J.D. scanned their back trail again, stopped at the rock pillar where the man took shelter and pulled the trigger once more. Then, in a single movement J.D. rose from the ground and followed Kate’s trail away from the mesa’s edge and toward their awaiting horses.
J.D. found Kate crouched behind a boulder, the Colt back in its holster and the Winchester pulled tightly against her shoulder. No words were spoken and J.D. continued towards the horses where he mounted his own and took the reins of Kate’s in his left hand.
Kate scanned the horizon for targets but found none. The only sound was the melancholy voice of the wind and the indistinct clatter of their nervous horses. She held her position until J.D. arrived with the horses, then she swung into the saddle and rode away from the battlefield, J.D. just behind. A passing cloud drowned the moon’s light, covered their retreat with velvet darkness.
CHAPTER 13
Small Basin’s sheriff’s office was wedged between the mercantile and water office. The door a bland gray. A small, wind-scarred sign that read Sheriff – Bill Allred hung loosely from the wall.
“He’s held the job awhile, if the sign’s condition is to be trusted,” J.D. said.
The door’s lock kept J.D. from entering and his knock went unanswered. A man, skinny and remarkably pale for the sunny climate, exited the mercantile, dropped the small sack he carried to the boardwalk when he noticed J.D. and Kate. His Adam’s apple in turmoil, galloped between his chin and jugular notch. His eyes the size of dollars.
“Seen the sheriff?”
The man opened his mouth, but emitted only a dry hiss.
Kate smiled seductively, winked and said, “Well there—”
The man squeaked. His Adam’s apple nearly jumped from his throat. He bent quickly, retrieved the sack and hurried back inside the mercantile.
J.D. laughed. “You nearly killed that poor man, Kate.”
“Yes, I did,” Kate turned her smile to J.D. “My power, at times, astonishes even me.”
J.D. laughed hard enough that tears formed in the corners of his eyes. He pulled Kate close, kissed her on the mouth, then said, “I sure love you, but you’re going to get us in trouble one day.”
“That day’s probably closer than you think,” said Sheriff Allred, approaching at J.D.’s back.
The sudden voice startled J.D., but he didn’t show even a twitch at the words. Instead, he untangled himself from Kate and turned deliberately towards the lawman.
“Just the man we’re looking for,” J.D. said. “Sheriff Allred.”
“I thought I told you to keep riding.”
“We never have availed ourselves to sound advice,” Kate said.
Sheriff Allred looked at Kate, then J.D. His eyes slits, his mouth a mean line across his face. “You should,” he said. “‘Avail yourselves to sound advice,’ miss.” Then to J.D., “What do you want?”
“To report a kidnapping,” J.D. said.
“Who and where?”
“Adalina Fernandez,” Kate said. “Lugar Bonito.”
“You always let your woman speak for you?” Allred said to J.D., then continued when no response came. “It’s of no interest to me. Lugar Bonito is outside my jurisdiction.”
“Outside your jurisdiction?”
“Yep.” Allred’s back was to J.D. and Kate, as he unlocked and then opened the office’s door.
“We know who did it,” Kate said.
“Bully for you,” Allred said. Once inside, he turned back to the street. “Maybe you should go get her.”
“Maybe we will,” J.D. said. “The men who took her work for Levi Skousen.”
It seemed to Kate the entire town went silent as Sheriff Allred studied her and J.D. The slight traffic on the boardwalk disappeared. The muted noises from the mercantile evaporated. The gentle moaning of the wind on buildings halted before the unbroken gaze of the lawman, his flinty eyes scrutinizing J.D. and Kate.
“Careful what you say about Brother Skousen,” Allred said. “He’s a man of God and a big wheel around here.”
“Is he?” Kate’s voice was cold. “Three of his men—”
“Willard Romms, Thomas Smith, Jackson Rockwell,” J.D. said.
“Rode into Lugar Bonito, pistol-whipped old man Fernandez and Father Pacheco then rode out with Adalina Fernandez.”
Allred smiled, leaned against the door’s frame, not unlike a snake’s seduction of a rat before devouring it. His right hand slid to the heavy Colt strapped to his hip, his palm rested on its butt. A motion J.D. countered nonchalantly, tightening his left hand on the forestock of his Winchester and the rifle’s grip with his right.
“There was trouble at Skousen’s place last night,” Allred said. “You two wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
J.D. frowned, looked at Kate, then back to Allred. “What kind of trouble?”
“A couple of Skousen’s hands were shot. One’s dead.”
“Adalina wasn’t hurt?” Kate asked.
Sheriff Allred studied J.D. and Kate. His eyes narrowed and J.D. could sense the turmoil of decision. Sheriff Allred knew what happened the previous night, that Kate and J.D. were involved, but a play now would ensure more trouble with no guarantee of victory. His eyes flashed and for a moment. J.D. thought Allred was going to draw the Colt, but instead he sighed, slouched back against the door jamb.
“I can’t speak for Brother Romms and Brother Smith,” Allred said, “but Brother Rockwell’s been here in town since yesterday.”
“Oh?” Kate said.
“He’s my deputy.”
“He works for you?” J.D. said. “Not Skousen?”
“Your business is done here,” Allred said.
“Sheriff,” J.D. said, “I don’t think it is. I reckon that’s my Colt you’re caressing and we won’t be leaving Small Basin until it’s back in my hand, Jed Skousen is in chains, and Adalina is home.” J.D. enjoyed the brief
glimmer of surprise in the lawman’s eyes at Jed Skousen’s name.
Allred pushed himself away from the door, removed the gray felt hat from his head. “Good luck.” Then, as he turned away, “If I see more lewdness from you two in this town, I’ll lock you both up.” He slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
“You know,” Kate said. “He’s growing on me.”
“I figured he would.”
“The idea of finding Brother Rockwell is growing on me, too.”
“Maybe he’ll come to us.” J. D pointed to the other end of Small Basin’s main street where a scuffle raised both dust and a crowd. “Since there’s a need for peacekeeping and Rockwell’s a lawman.”
Kate looked up in time to see two men spill out of the town’s diner and into the street. A sharply dressed man, perhaps thirty-five years old, with a flat brimmed black felt hat, black suit, not unlike those worn by gamblers in the mining towns, wailed on a skinny towheaded young man. He expertly worked the boy’s face and ribs. He jabbed with his left, hooked with his right. His voice rose and fell with each blow, echoed down the narrow street.
“I told you—”
The man’s fist slammed into the boy’s temple, knocked him sideways with an unsteady gait.
“To stay out of—”
Two quick jabs under the ribs lifted the boy off his feet. He fell hard to his knees, held himself up with one hand and with the other ineffectually tried to fend off the older man’s blows.
“Town.”
The man pulled the boy up by his hair, his face pulpy and red from the beating, then brought his booted foot sharply against the boy’s chest, a loud whip-like crack on impact. He let the boy fall back to the ground where he remained still. The boy bleated a loud, raspy whimper with each spasmodic breath.
The crowd rumbled excitedly at the activity. A few men shouted encouragement to the older man. A handful of women, children in tow, skittered nervously away. J.D. and Kate approached. They kept to the boardwalk, tried to avoid the crowd’s attention.
The man stood over the boy, adjusted the guns on his hips. He looked up at the crowd, a sour expression on his face, then back down at the boy. He unleashed a powerful kick. The boy made a mewling, wounded animal sound. Then the man, smiling cruelly, spat in the boy’s face. He looked back to the crowd, said, “I believe the street needs cleaning.”