by L. J. Martin
There was some benefit coming, with God’s help. The moon was only occasionally peeking through the growing cloud cover, and more and more my smeller said rain marching our way.
Another half mile and I was into cedars, sparse at first, then thick as flies on a fresh road apple. I had to take up the gray’s lead rope, which was more than occasionally hard on the thigh, dragging him our way in the thick cover.
Every hundred yards I’d make a ninety degree turn, but always climbing, until I noticed the occasional pine, then no cedars and we were into a pine forest.
The distant flash of lightening, then on the count of only two, a deep rolling grumble of thunder. Only two miles away I hoped, and even more so hoped it was heading my way. A good gully washer would be the good Lord’s blessing, as it would wash my tracks away, both in the creek and in the cedars.
And it was time, as each time I had to reach back to jerk the gray on, I was getting dizzy. I figured I had best find a place to hole up, somewhere I could occasionally take a gander at my backtrail.
The old man in the heavens kept answering me, as I came upon a vertical cliff, and soon a crack in it led me into a fissure. It wasn’t a cave, and only ten or so feet across the bottom, but it had walls a hundred feet high, and kept most of the rain out. I had no idea where it led, or how deep the cut went into the Cliffside, but it was shelter of a sort and rose high enough over the plain to be able to see my backtrail.
I staked the horses out, but only loosened their latigos, leaving the saddles in place; finding a slight indentation in the wall, I rolled up in my bear coat. I dare not start a fire, and it might just be days before I risked one, if I lasted days. Checking the wound in my thigh as best I could, I found it weeping, but only slightly. It, at least, was through and though and had shed the lead and not hit bone. In seconds, the past was just that, the past, and my now was deep and dark, if tumultuous.
For a change I didn’t dream of my sister and her family, but almost as bad, of Dusty and Ranger. I don’t know if it was the flash of lightening or the almost continuous rumble and crack of thunder, but it was not an easy sleep…it was all gunfire, flashing blades, and blood and crying men and animals. And I awoke in a sweat.
But I had made it to light, and mid-morning if the shadows of the pines were an indication. I’d slept far longer than I would have thought I would, but didn’t feel rested. There was something about the rain that was sleep inducing, even with the dreams, and it was coming steadily. The trickle that had been a foot wide, was now three feet, and growing.
And there’s something about having a dozen or more riders dogging your trail that interferes with your rest, and I was sure that was the case.
There was still a handful of jerky in my saddlebag, but no bread. Since I’d curled up in the night. The widening trickle in the bottom of the fissure made me believe the cut might go deeper into the cliff side than just a split in the cliff—the water had to be coming from somewhere. Now that it was light, I could see a hundred yards or more back into the cut. It seemed to widen.
I suddenly discovered I’d be investigating just how deep it went, for I heard men shouting, and the neighing of a horse. It sure as hell didn’t seem I’d be going back the way I’d come in. I’ve known these high desert canyons before, and rain can mean merely a greening of the countryside, or a rampaging wall of water that can roil and roll you and your horse to a watery demise. I could be riding away from death, but I could also be riding into it.
Moving as quickly as my thigh and still healing side and shot up thigh would allow, I rolled my coat and tied it behind the gray’s saddle, sucked up the cinches on both of them, and this time mounted the gray and led Cavanaugh’s horse, which in the light turned out to be a handsome colored sorrel. I was a horse thief, but at least it was a handsome animal I’d pilfered.
I wish I had time to drag my trail, as there’s a sand bottom in this cut, but no time. The growing water might be a sweet savior or a death angel.
Trying to make as little noise as possible, I gigged the horses forward and we picked our way deeper, away from the opening.
Gradually, the cut widened, then narrowed again, then became a slot canyon with only a sliver of light from above, then suddenly I was confronted with a pool, looking deep, with vertical walls on the canyon sides, but with a gentle slope leading up and out the far side. Swimming the horses fifty or sixty feet would be no problem, so I gave the gray my heels and he readily plunged it, but the sorrel pulled up, jerking me out of the saddle.
Cursing, now soaking wet, I moved around behind him and gave him the boot, and he leapt halfway across the damn pool, and out of my reach, so I had to swim for it. I’d hoped his tail would act as a drag rope, but it was not to be.
The hell of it was, when I reached the other side where the horses were contentedly grazing where the sun on a different day must have reached the floor of the cut, my thigh was bleeding again. I guess the water had loosened whatever scab had formed. I had to pull my belt and apply the squeeze to it again.
The depth of the water was increasing with the storm and the flow getting stronger, hock deep across the wider canyon. I smiled, knowing that in the narrow entrance it would be knee deep or more, flowing in a roar, and that would discourage any pursuers as well as wipe out my tracks—so long as it didn’t grow and wipe me out as well.
Gradually, the canyon pulled up, and the walls became lower and lower until it finally opened, but steeply, into a rock and river willow scattered clearing. Rivulets, in a fan shape, gathered to cut the slot canyon below. Far below, through the now easing rain, I could see the copse of pines at or near the canyon’s opening. I listened for a long while, hoping against hope that I’d hear exactly what I heard…the sweet sound of nothing but the flow of water. Miles away, the lightening still flashed, but only the tickle of thunder reached us.
It was early afternoon, the rain had stopped, but still I was through for the day. I was soon in another thicket of pines, this time higher, and found them to be lodge poles, and I stumbled into a thicket of blow-down that made a natural corral for the horses so long as I closed one opening with a lead rope. The crazy stack of logs provided lots of dry firewood and it’s smoke would quickly be lost in the moist air, and it was more than fair shelter for me. I took a chance and made a small fire from some very dry wood, and made another soup from the jerky, a pinch of salt scraped from the bottom of my saddle bags after a long ago broken sack, and a handful of watercress I found along a trickle of water. Then hobbled the horses as double insurance, and slept.
I awoke to a dawn sky, mottled gray and gold, to my thigh wound sealed nicely with scab, and to my horses still grazing contentedly under the lodge pole pine. It was still wet enough so my smoke would be almost undetectable, so I built up a roaring fire and dried my gear and warmed up. I needed what blood I had left to flow freely and get me healed up, and warmth seemed to help that process. For a man on the run, I was a leisurely sort. I didn’t want the Lazy Snake hands to catch up with me as I still had a job of work to do…Colonel Mace Dillon, the head of the snake, and his nephew, Seth Rheinhart. To be truthful, I’d been awash in blood, and I am sick at heart with it…but a promise is a promise, even if made to a ghost.
I didn’t want to kill anyone else, particularly not a man merely doing his job, riding for the brand.
And I sure as hell didn’t want to get caught, as I no longer had the protection of my marshal’s badge. In the eyes of Wentworth, and most of the world, I am sure I am now no more than a killer and a horse thief, and that would please him to no end.
It took me three days, taking my time, riding slowly, killing one snowshoe rabbit and roasting him, and another cotton tail when I got lower and near the Transcontinental. Then, tired, but faith somewhat renewed, I reached the high meadow where I’d found Angel. Neither he nor his brother were near, and the sheep had long ago grazed away, but the cabin was there, and some vittles were nicely stored so I could make some biscuits and fry up a
little moldy but still nourishing hog belly for chewing and sopping. A tender loin of beef never tasted better. I rested for another day and a night, then followed the track and scat of the herd of woolies, until I came upon them on a grassy slope below a line of pines.
A pair of shepherds saw me from more than a quarter mile away, and I could see one of them fade up into the pines. Angel was taking no chances, I presumed, and I turned out to be right as Iggy went running for him when he recognized me.
The first thing Angel said to me was of little surprise. “You see the poster, Señor?”
“Nope.”
“You are a five hundred dollar hombre.”
“A wanted poster?” I asked.
“It was not an advertisement for your good looks,” Angel said, then laughed.
“Nope,” I replied. “That would be for a nickel. What am I wanted for?”
“You are a murderer and a horse thief…and they want you, or merely your head.”
“Ain’t that something.”
“Sheriff Wentworth was here yesterday, with a posse. With God’s grace, we saw their dust in the distance, and I was deep in the woods when they came.”
“Good. Were they looking for you as well?”
“No mention, so perhaps no one knew I was at the McGregor’s with you.”
“Only the McGregor’s, and deep down they’re decent folks, but just saying they’ll talk too much, you and Iggy should head out, soon as you can. I will rest up, heal up, then go and finish my job. You and your brother head south.”
“No, senor, I will go with you.”
“You’ve done enough, Angel. You have avenged your father, and I have finished it for you. Cavanaugh is a dead man…I stared into his dead eyes myself.”
“I hope he died hard. Where will they bury him? I will piss on his grave, in honor of my father.”
“He’ll be in the Lazy Snake graveyard, I’m sure. And you go pisin’ around there and you’ll be buried beside Cavanaugh…or fed to the coyotes. I need to rest, and you need to forget revenge. You’ve got yours.”
He looked quizzically; then as if he heard me, but was far from satisfied.
They had a camp; canvas pack covers strung between the trees to ward off the rain and sun, a good fire pit with a pot hanger and a fine cast iron Dutch oven, a windbreak of lodge pole pine blow down…so I rolled up there and slept for most of two days. The boys were both fine hands with tortillas and they kept a pot of frijoles and meat—rabbit, rattlesnake, grouse—going at all times.
Then it came to me. “Angel, do you know what day it is?”
“Es vierenes.”
“Sorry, English please.”
“Is Friday, Señor.”
I smiled, for I knew where colonel Mace Dillon was likely to be on the morrow…and it was not on the Lazy Snake.
Even though I’d slept for two days, I ate a hardy supper of tortillas, beans, and a treat, as a lamb had been lamed and injured in a fall and the boys butchered it. Then I slept the sleep of the innocent.
Now, to get into Nemesis without being seen.
Chapter Twenty-Five
There was only one place I thought I might be welcome in Nemesis, and that was at the home of Lizzy Perlmutter, the owner of Sally’s. Her house, a two story clapboard affair with some attempt in the desert climate to make it appear as if it was in New England, rose out of a circle of green grass fifty paces behind the saloon,. A couple of elm trees were already six inches in diameter, and a few planters were showing off drying primroses, daisies, and some rose bushes in bud.
The moon was occluded by clouds and it was dark as the inside of a nailed coffin.
It was four A.M. when I arrived at her place, taking the risk of putting the gray into a vacant loafing shed and coral behind the house, where I also hid one of my lever actions and the pair of LeMats. No lights shown and I was about to try and jimmy the door, when a door slammed behind me, and a lantern bobbed it’s way toward the house.
I jumped over the porch rail, landed quietly and having to bury the outcry I wanted to make because of the shooting pain in thigh and side, and hid behind the side of the house until I could make out Lizzy’s pretty face over the lantern as she mounted the stairs. Luckily, she was alone.
“Lizzy, you should keep company until you’re safe in your house.”
“Damn,” she said, startled, and holding the lantern out to illuminate my face over the porch rail. “Why, if it isn’t the judge, jury, and executioner. I heard you walked right into the Lazy Snake and redecorated as if you owned the place.”
“Word travels fast. Can I hang out with you for a while? I’d go inside and give you some busi—“
“No thanks,” she said, as she quickly turned down the wick on the lantern. “You’ve killed half my customers already, and half the other half are staying inside their houses, under their covers, until this little war of yours is fini…c’est fini”
“No, you mean no thanks to my going inside Sally’s, or my hanging out with you for a while?”
“Get inside,” she said, and I vaulted the rail, then winced and damn near passed out from the pain. I gathered my wits and waited while she fumbled with a skeleton key and got us inside.
“You want a drink?”
“Got a lot of work to do tomorrow…I guess I mean today…but I could have a touch.”
“Saturday,” she said as she headed to a cabinet and pulled out a bottle and a pair of glasses. “So, it’s time for all the Lazy Snake boys to arrive to hoo’ra the town. You don’t figure on shootin’ up my place again?”
“No, ma’am. I figure on taking it elsewhere.”
“Good. You gonna get some sleep first?”
“I expect, after I kill this drink, and maybe one more if you can spare it. I’ve been riding over twenty miles getting here.”
“And you didn’t come onto Wentworth. He and a half-dozen highbinders to whom he’s promised a smidgen of the reward Dillon is offering are working the hills over trying to turn you up, and I imagine turn you into worm food.”
“Nope, didn’t see the old boy.”
“And I hope you don’t,” she said, and we clinked glasses and downed the three fingers of good whiskey in a gulp. She poured us another.
“Aren’t you about finished with this blood trail you’re following?”
“About.”
We’d finished the drinks, and she wasted no time pouring another.
She sighed deeply after downing half of that, and edged closer until she was a palm’s width away and looking up into my eyes, her breasts barely brushing the front of my shirt, then her voice lowered an octave and her eyes turned liquid. I could barely hear her low whisper, but was damn glad I could.
“Tag, I’m guessing I may never see you again, so how would you like to come upstairs and…and accept my…my female hospitality before you go out into another storm of gunfire.”
“Well, ma’am, I’m shot all to hell, and smell like the horse I’ve been on for a good long while, but if you’d accept me in that sorry state, I’d be more than honored.”
“And I’ve not kept company with a man since I’ve been in Nemesis, so if that lack of practice doesn’t bother you….”
“Again, I’m honored.”
With that, she and I both finished the rest of our whiskey, then she reached out and took my hand, and led me up the stairs.
It was a damn good thing my business with Colonel Dillon would not commence until the afternoon, as I slept later than I had in a decade, and was called upon to accept some more female hospitality after I awoke, well after the sun was over the yardarm. My leg and my side pained me something terrible, but I was not surprised that I oft times forgot I had a side and a thigh.
I can’t remember a time I enjoyed more than she and I merely relaxing in her feather bed, sipping some fine New Orleans coffee she’d brewed.
Finally, just before noon, seemingly with some reluctance, she dressed and went over to the saloon and returned with
a plate of food.
“Where’s yours?” I asked, admiring the eggs, pork chops, and hotcakes.
“I didn’t think it would be wise to let anyone over there think I had company. Besides, you’re my business, and no one else’s, at least for a little while longer.”
And I don’t think I ever enjoyed a meal more, than partaking one while Lizzy Perlmutter watched me with eyes the color of a cornflower over a porcelain cup.
When I finished, she asked, “What am I going to do with you, Tag?”
“Doubt if I’ll be around to be done with, Miss Lizzy, and am a little surprised I still am.”
“You’ve seen the posters out on you?”
“I have.”
“Tag, why don’t you head west and we tie up in San Francisco, which I plan as my next stop, and where there’s fifty thousand to hide out among…until this all cools down. You’d look just fine in a beard for a while. Like I said, you could sit shotgun—“
“Still got work to do, Lizzy. You wouldn’t want a man around who didn’t do what he said he was going to do.”
“If you promised a spirit I guess you could break it, and I knew your sister if only slightly, and she seemed one who’d want her brother to live, and live happy…and it seems to me you’ve already done plenty to fulfill your pledge.”
“Maybe, but I promised myself as well, and I promised Angel Sanchez…and the son’s a bitches killed the best damn horse ever to wear iron shoes and a dog that was a hell of a philosopher and smarter by a long shot than his master.”
She laughed, and I smiled.
“Well, I guess I wouldn’t care for a man who wouldn’t kill several fellows over the loss of a dog and a horse.”