Barker slid the leather thong off the hammer of his Colt, took a deep breath, then walked into the store all natural-like. Inside he was twisted up as tight as a hog-tied calf and twice as nervous. The instant he entered the doorway, the vaquero spun, hand going for the massive pistol slung at his right hip.
“Ah, the town jefe.”
“Afternoon,” Barker said, his cold eyes meeting those of the vaquero. He had the feeling that whoever looked away first lost, and he was determined it wasn’t going to be him. But exactly what would be gained wasn’t obvious.
The vaquero slid his fingers back along the lapels of his fancy-ass jacket and half turned back to Dooley.
“I would buy one, if you have it.”
Dooley looked at Barker, then nodded curtly. He bent and brought up a tray of pocket watches.
“I would buy un reloj to replace the one you took from my good friend, su hijo.”
“Nate said he didn’t know you. So you two are friends now?”
“Oh, sí, amigos,” the Mexican said. “Our chance meeting has given us the chance to become great friends.” He bent to examine the watches. “The best one, the finest for my new best friend.”
“How’d you come to be such good friends?” Barker asked, still wary of the way the vaquero stood. If he had a hideout pistol tucked away in an interior pocket, he could get off a shot or two before Barker cleared leather. He wasn’t the fastest draw in town and never tried to be, but he was a good shot. An accurate one, given the time to take it.
“This one.” A stubby finger stabbed down onto a large watch.
“That there’s a hundred-dollar watch,” Dooley said. “Don’t think you’d—”
“Solo un cien? Only a hundred?” The vaquero pulled out a roll of greenbacks and began peeling off tens and twenties. When he got to one hundred, he contemptuously threw another ten onto the stack, adding, “For gift wrapping. You can do this?”
Dooley licked his lips, then said, “What color ribbon you want?”
The vaquero laughed and turned back to Barker.
“You will take the wrapped present and give it to Nate?”
“Why not give it to him yourself?”
The vaquero shrugged.
“My business takes me out of town often. I would have him know the time, since you stole the other watch.”
“I returned it to the stage agent so he could give it to the passenger in the robbery.” Barker sometimes wondered about the honesty of the Halliday agent in Mesilla, but this time he thought the stolen property would be returned, if for no reason other than it was so distinctive. If the agent flashed that watch around town, he’d be noticed. Besides, although Barker didn’t know for certain, he thought a reward might have been offered for the watch’s return. The lure of a few dollars would be far greater than knowing what time it was, even using an expensive watch. That little soiled dove that the agent was sweet on would also profit more from a few dollars than getting to look at an open watch case.
“I am sure he was grateful,” the vaquero said, with more than a hint that Barker had kept the watch for himself. “See that Nate gets my generous gift.”
“You leaving Mesilla?” Barker asked.
“My business takes me away from here.”
“Where?”
“Away.” The Mexican slid his fingers down his lapels to get his right hand closer to his six-shooter.
“Bien viaje,” Barker said.
The vaquero laughed and pushed past the marshal, going into the hot afternoon. The sunlight glinted off the gold and silver chasing on his large sombrero, but the reflection from the embroidered jacket was dazzling, forcing Barker to squint. And then the glare disappeared. The vaquero had hastily moved on.
“What do you make of that, Deputy?” Dooley counted the scrip repeatedly, as if it might disappear if he stopped fingering the bills.
“I reckon you’d better wrap up the watch like your customer said.”
“You take it to give to your boy?”
“Keep it here. He might be back to work, if there’s a job still open for him.”
Dooley hesitated, then his resolve hardened.
“The job’s not his. I can’t keep workers here I can’t depend on. He either shows up and gets paid or he doesn’t.”
“How much was his last pay?”
“Eighty cents. Still got it here.” Dooley fumbled around under the counter and pulled out a small envelope. “You take it to him?”
Barker hesitated. Eighty cents wasn’t much, but he couldn’t understand why Nate hadn’t claimed it. If the boy had gone to drinking, that’d buy him eight shots of whiskey or enough cheap beer to get drunk on.
“Keep it with the watch,” he decided. Without another word, he stepped out into the furnace-like air, in time to see the vaquero riding fast out of town. As he bobbed about on his horse, he flashed like a beacon in the bright sun. His sombrero hid his face, but the silver conchas would stand out for miles.
Tracking him would be easy, at least until sundown.
“Marshal Barker, Mason, where are you going?”
Barker turned to Mayor Pendleton, who hurried up fluttering a folded piece of paper as a fan.
“Got business. Law business, might be,” he answered.
“Here. I wanted you to see this. What do you think?” Pendleton thrust out the paper, still damp from his sweaty hand.
Barker unfolded it and frowned.
“Looks like a wanted poster, but it says this here’s your new marshal.”
“I wanted folks in town to know what he looked like’fore he arrived. He’s coming in from over Fort Worth way in a day or two.”
“Ed Dravecky,” Barker said, letting the name roll around in his mouth. He didn’t want to spit, so he figured the new marshal must be all right.
“That’s him. He’s got a good reputation from working as a deputy for close to a year in Hell’s Half Acre.”
“ ’Fore that?”
“Well, all he’d say was that he worked on a ranch in Indian Territory.”
“Doin’ what?”
The mayor just shook his head.
“I wouldn’t worry about that, Mayor, not if you know he’s done a good job this past year in Fort Worth. Those are tough customers there, and if he kept them in line, Mesilla is going to be a Sunday social for him.” Barker looked once more at the smeary likeness of the man who was replacing him. “Ed Dravecky. How about that?” He handed the sheet back to the mayor. “You want some advice?”
“Why, yes, of course, Mase. You know I respect you.”
“Don’t put these up around town. Some of the boys’ll use them as targets and might not know the difference when Marshal Dravecky gets to town.”
“How should I introduce him?”
“Church on Sunday’s a way. He can hit all three of ’em here in Mesilla without any problem. That’s what I did when Marshal Armijo assigned me the whole southern part of the territory. Took me a while longer to make the rounds to the rest in my territory, but it worked. I got to know the law-abiding folks ’fore I did the rowdies.”
“And they got to know you. Yes, that’s a good idea, Mase. You always were a thinker.”
That might have been true, but Barker’s thoughts were about a mile down the road, following the vaquero who refused to give a name. Anybody flashing such a big wad of greenbacks and mouthing off the way he had was up to no good. Memory of the stagecoach robbery returned to haunt Barker, as well as the army’s reports of cattle rustlers. They might think it was Apaches off the reservation responsible—and Barker knew that was a possibility—but he had a gut feeling that the road agents and the rustlers were one and the same.
Ladrónes from down in Sonora.
It took him the better part of an hour to lay in supplies for what might be a long scout, then mount and start from town. He passed by Dooley’s store and felt a pang of regret about Nate. If Nate still worked there, he could have told his son to let his ma know there’d be o
nly the two of them for dinner. As it was, Ruth would have to make do on her own. She was a strong woman, but she didn’t deserve such a life.
As he left Mesilla behind, Barker wondered if he ought to have argued with Pendleton over the town marshal’s job. It probably didn’t pay as well as being a deputy federal marshal, but he wouldn’t be hitting the trail to follow a will-o’-the-wisp all the time. If he had to justify this trip to Armijo—or to Ruth—he wasn’t sure that he could. An arrogant caballero was hardly reason to traipse across southern New Mexico, and yet that was what he was doing.
He rode a little faster. The sun almost blinded him, turning him wary. If the vaquero decided to sit beside the road and wait for anyone trailing him, he would have an easy target. The more Barker thought on it, though, the more he decided that his quarry was in a powerful hurry to get somewhere and probably had too little respect for either him or any lawman to tarry.
When the cold wind began blowing off the desert, Barker had to find a spot to rest for the night. Riding caused his back to twinge, but the cold stiffened it to the point where he couldn’t turn. He made a few tentative grabs for the butt of his Colt Peacemaker and found it almost impossible to draw the nearly three pounds of iron.
“That’s not good,” Barker muttered to himself. He stopped trying to pull his six-shooter and dismounted, leading his horse to the lee side of a sandy hill to fix himself a small fire using dried mesquite from the bank of a nearby arroyo. His horse fitfully nibbled at the grass and found a few seed pods still dangling on the mesquite. Barker fried himself some bacon, made a quick batch of biscuits that were nothing more than flour paste all fried up in the grease, and then washed it down with some water.
As the canteen sloshed toward empty, he knew he’d have to find more. But not now. Not tonight. He scooped out spots for his shoulders and hips in the sand, spread his blanket, snuggled down in the hollows, and fell asleep wishing he were home with his wife beside him.
It hardly seemed an instant until the sun on his face brought him bolt upright. He reached for his six-gun, but again his stiffness betrayed him. Barker lay back down and stared up into the cloudless blue sky, knowing it would be another hot one. For an instant, he considered turning around and going back to Mesilla. Marshal Dravecky would be in town today or tomorrow. Soon. He ought to greet him and show him around, introduce him to the saloon owners and the working girls and the citizens of Mesilla. He ought to.
Groaning as he stretched his sore back and stiff joints, Barker stood, secured his bedroll, and then fixed himself some oatmeal for breakfast, using the last of his water. He needed to boil some coffee to get fully awake, but he had exhausted his canteen.
It took the better part of an hour for him to find a pool of sweet water, let his mare drink, wash his own face and hands, and fill his canteen.
How far ahead was the vaquero?
Barker didn’t know the answer. The Mexican might be across the border by now or only a mile down the road. It depended on where he was in such an all-fired hurry to be.
Somehow he didn’t think the man was returning to Mexico. Whatever had lit the fire under his tail feathers had to be more important—and a lot less legal.
Barker spotted him from the rise of a hill less than an hour later. The vaquero still rode west but at such a sedate pace that it would be hard not to overtake him.
As appealing as it might have been to beat the information out of him—including his name—the vaquero had to remain unaware he was being followed. Otherwise he wouldn’t reveal enough.
Mason Barker was a good tracker, a damned good one, and had learned from the Navajos how to follow a rider and never be seen. He hadn’t lost any of his skill over the years—or so he thought.
The tracks stopped abruptly, forcing him to get down to look at the ground more carefully. His first hint that he had grown careless was the crunch of boots on gravel. Then things went to hell in a hurry.
8
MASON BARKER LOOKED UP AT THE RIFLE BARREL pointed at his head. The man’s hand trembled just a mite, warning that a stray shot might come Barker’s way at any instant if he said the wrong thing.
“Why don’t you just aim that in some other direction?”
“Why are you trailin’ me?”
“Wasn’t,” Barker said. “I’m just riding along the road and—”
“Liar!”
“Now, that’s not a neighborly thing to say.”
“I seen how you was sniffin’ along the road, lookin’ fer my tracks. I outsmarted you and got the drop on you, though. I’m smarter’n you.”
“Seems true enough,” Barker said. He tried to twist to get his hand closer to his Colt. Times like this he wished he carried his pistol cavalry style with the butt forward or maybe even in a cross-draw holster, so he could throw down no matter how he was situated. But his back ached, and dragging out the six-gun would be impossible before the trigger-itching finger curled on the rifle.
They said nothing for a spell, making the gunman even more nervous. He finally broke the silence.
“What are you gonna do now?”
“Reckon that’s up to you. You’re the one holding the rifle on me.”
“Why were you followin’ me?”
Barker considered letting the man know he was a federal marshal, then decided that might get him killed then and there. Anyone so anxious about being tracked was likely on the run.
“Truth is, I’m following a Mexican fellow.” Barker described the vaquero the best he could, then added, “He stole a watch that’s been in my family for generations. Can’t let a sneak thief get away with my granddaddy’s watch.”
“A watch? You’re not after me?”
“Never saw you ’fore you pointed that rifle at me.”
“What’s this sneak thief’s name?”
Barker shook his head and said nothing.
“You’re not Marianne’s husband?”
“Don’t know any Marianne.” There was a ring of sincerity in Barker’s words since they were the gospel truth. “Don’t even know where I am. Lordsburg is in that direction, but I don’t have a map. I lit out after the bandolero and that’s all I know.”
“I seen a rider earlier today. Might have been him.”
Barker caught his breath. The rifle lowered enough so any twitchy finger wouldn’t send a bullet through his head. Through his horse, maybe, but Barker was likely to get a shot off in that case. He had never killed a man, but if this locoweed killed his mare, Barker likely would add a single notch to the handle of his six-shooter. He got to his feet. The man didn’t get any crazier, so Barker asked what he hoped would get the man’s mind off his own cheating ways and onto real crime—someone else’s criminal ways.
“Tell me about him. Did he shine like he was on fire? He was wearing a silver- and gold-chased jacket, and the sombrero was big, with even more silver decoration on it.”
“He did. I thought it was a ghost, maybe.” The rifle lowered even more.
“Where’d you see him last?” Barker’s voice took on a sharper edge, one of command he had developed over the years. It worked again.
“That way. Off the road, heading down toward the border. You willin’ to follow him into Mexico?”
“That watch means the world to me.”
“You don’t know her?”
“Her?” It took Barker a second to realize the man was still worried about this Marianne’s husband coming after him for whatever he had done. Chances were good that he hadn’t harmed her or done much more than get her in a family way. Otherwise, he’d be worrying about a lawman on his trail.
“Marianne, but you don’t know her.” The man lowered his rifle all the way and heaved a sigh. “If I’da knowed she was married, I’d never have—”
“That way?” Barker said, not wanting to listen to the man’s confession.
“An hour back, maybe more. But that goes down into the Bootheel. Roughest country this side of hell.”
“Thanks for th
e warning,” Barker said. He had been down into the Peloncilla Mountains a time or two and knew how rough the territory was. Once he had caught a fugitive, the other time he had gotten so turned around he was lucky to get out alive, eventually finding a trail leading west into Arizona. It took him a week to travel north until he found the road that led back to Mesilla.
He rode away slowly, the hair on the back of his neck still standing at attention. The itch he felt in his back had nothing to do with the twinges. He just hoped the philanderer didn’t take it into his head to remove all traces of his trail—starting with a man he thought had followed him.
Barker wondered where the man’s transgression had occurred. This was rugged country, but there were plenty of ranches around. It took close to a hundred acres of this arid land to graze a single cow, but closer to the mountains there were grassier meadows and plenty of water. Not that it mattered how many acres a single cow needed. There was plenty of empty open range here for any size herd.
He rode directly toward a notch in the low hills on the east side of the mountains, thinking the vaquero had made a beeline there. If he hadn’t, he’d either camped out or knew of another pass that led deeper into the mountains. Either way, Barker wouldn’t find him. But if the Mexican had remained on this trail, he could overtake him before he reached Mexico. Once across the border, not only was he out of Barker’s jurisdiction as a lawman, he was likely to blend into the populace so completely that no gringo could ever find him.
If that happened, the best Barker could hope for was a decent shot of tequila and a hasty retreat back north of the border.
He rode steadily until the sun began to set. This close to the western mountains, he knew a couple hours of day would be lost to him. He urged his horse to a trot before twilight shrouded the trail leading deeper into the canyons. As he topped a rise, he recoiled and almost fell from his horse. Not fifty yards away the vaquero crouched by a watering hole.
The Sonora Noose Page 7