by Steve Hayes
‘’Fore sunup – ’less you’n that scattergun got other plans.’
Sheriff Cobb smiled without humor. ‘That’s to make sure you leave, son, not stay.’
‘So you ain’t lookin’ to collect the reward?’
‘Money’s no good if you’re feet-up. And we both know you could put a hole in me ’fore that fool nephew of mine could pull the trigger.’
‘Possible.’
‘Possible – impossible – either way it’s a risk I’m not anxious to take.’
‘Not even for a thousand in gold?’
‘Is that what the reward is now? Been so long since I’ve seen a poster I’d forgotten. But to answer your question, Mr Jennings, no – it’s not worth the risk. I’ve got a little money stashed away and I’ll be adding more to it shortly. I can only do that if I’m still sunny-side up. Besides, folks around here pay me to keep the peace, not rile things up.’
‘That why you ain’t packing?’
‘I don’t carry a gun, Mr Jennings, ’cause I got no need for it. Times are changing. Gunmen like yourself – and I don’t mean this as an insult – your days are winding down. Pretty soon, Washington and maybe even state governments will pass laws forbiddin’ a man to carry a sidearm.’
Gabriel found that hard to imagine, but kept his thoughts to himself. Downing his rye, he poured them both another. ‘Anythin’ else, Sheriff?’
‘Matter of fact, yes.’ Moving cautiously, hands always in sight, the sheriff pulled a piece of paper and a stubby pencil from his vest pocket and placed them before Gabriel. ‘I’d like your John Henry. It’s a hobby of mine,’ he said as Gabriel looked puzzled. ‘Collecting the names of famous shootists I’ve run into. Earp, Garrett, the Kid, Doc Holliday – I got ’em all.’
‘An’ you want to add mine to the list, that it?’
‘I suppose it’s a tad ghoulish,’ the sheriff admitted. ‘But I’m hangin’ up my star soon and when I do, I intend to write my memoirs. According to this publisher I met, folks back East crave that sort of trash. And the more autographs and pictures the better. Says I’ll make enough money to retire in style. Name’s Cobb,’ he added as Gabriel picked up the pencil. ‘Andrew J. Cobb. With two b’s.’
Gabriel licked the lead of the pencil stub and signed his name.
‘Gabriel Moonlight?’ Sheriff Cobb looked puzzled.
‘That’s my birth-given name.’
‘What about Mesquite Jennings?’
‘I stole that from a dime novel. I was always was on the prod back then an’ it sounded like the kind of name an outlaw would have.’
The sheriff grunted. ‘I’ll be damned. Well, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d appreciate it if you’d sign that name for me. After all,’ he said when Gabriel didn’t answer, ‘you are still a wanted man, Mr Moonlight. So it wouldn’t actually be a lie, would it?’
‘Reckon not.’ Gabriel scrawled Mesquite Jennings across the paper.
‘Much obliged.’ Sheriff Cobb tucked pencil and paper away and got to his feet. ‘Figure on comin’ back this way any time soon?’
‘Hard to say.’
‘Well, if you do, look me up. I’ll buy you a drink before puttin’ you on the train.’ He paused to let his words sink in. Then getting no response from Gabriel, he finished his drink, tipped his hat and started for the door.
‘Sheriff—’ Gabriel waited for the lawman to turn and look at him. ‘My signature … is it worth more if I’m dead?’
‘A lot more,’ Sheriff Cobb said. ‘But I’m a patient man, son, so no need to rush things on my account.’ Chuckling, he walked out the door followed by the deputy.
Gabriel poured himself another drink, drank, and looked at his reflection in the mirror hanging behind the bar.
The man staring back at him looked weary but fearless.
Gabriel raised his glass in silent toast, drank, and left.
Once outside in the cooling dusk, he quickly stepped to the right of the batwing doors so that he wasn’t silhouetted against the light inside the cantina.
He stood there a moment, insects whining about his ears, searching the faces of passing pedestrians, wagon drivers and horsemen to see if he recognized anyone. He didn’t. Nor could he see anyone lurking among the false-fronted buildings across the street, or hiding on the rooftops, either. Could he be mistaken, he wondered. Could the card player be someone other than Latigo Rawlins, a deadly Texas gunman who was both a hired gun and a bounty hunter? What little description Gabriel had been given fitted Latigo. Admittedly, it fitted other people too. But if it wasn’t Latigo, who was it and why had he taken off so suddenly? Didn’t he want Gabriel to see him? Was he an outlaw himself? Did he mistake Gabriel for a lawman, and high-tailed it out of the cantina rather than face him?
Having more questions than answers, Gabriel decided to let things play out. Stepping off the boardwalk, he warily crossed the street and entered the Commercial Hotel.
Collecting his key at the front desk, he went up to his room and knocked on the door. ‘It’s me, scout – Gabe.’
Raven opened the door. ‘Well?’ she asked, stepping back so he could get a good look at her. ‘What do you think?’
He frowned and pretended to be puzzled. ‘Thought you were goin’ to take a bath an’ get all gussied up?’
‘Very funny. Ha ha,’ she said, punching him. ‘Now quit your joshin’ and tell me how I look?’
Gabriel studied her. She’d bathed, brushed her short shiny black hair so that it framed her face, cut her bangs so they no longer hung over her large dark eyes, put on her only dress – a church-going yellow gingham frock with white frilly cuffs – and street shoes. She also smelled of hotel soap, a fragrance not unlike lilacs after a rain.
‘Prettier than a spring foal,’ he said.
‘Think folks will still mistake me for a boy?’
‘I’ll shoot the first daisy who does.’
Raven giggled, stepped close and hugged him.
‘Will you take me out to dinner, Mr Moonlight, sir?’
‘Be honored to, Miss Raven, ma’am.’
CHAPTER FOUR
They ate at the Oro Fino, a timbered, family-owned restaurant on Railroad Avenue opposite the Union Depot. The food was simple and wholesome, the portions huge, and the prices much lower than meals at the Harvey House or one of the hotels. Though packed with cattlemen, miners and railroad employees, Gabriel and Raven managed to get a table by one of the two windows facing the railroad tracks and the dark scrubland beyond.
They ate heartily, wolfing down steaks, mashed potatoes, gravy and greens that left their stomachs groaning but somehow still found room for homemade pecan pie. Gabriel then bought two Mexican-made cheroots and smoked one of them as they headed back to their hotel. Though it was dark, street lights lit their way and showed their reflections in store windows.
Raven stopped in front of one and made funny faces at herself.
Gabriel paused and watched her. Her antics made him chuckle. Encouraged, she danced around and then curtsied as if before an audience.
‘Hear them, Gabe?’ she said, cupping one hand behind her ear. ‘Everyone in the theater’s clapping and cheering. They love me.’
He wanted to say that he loved her too, that with her mother gone she was now the joy making his life worthwhile, but as usual he couldn’t find the words. Angry at himself for not being able to express his emotions, he said curtly, ‘C’mon … it’s too cold to be monkeyin’ around.’
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear. All the happiness fled from her face. ‘Oh, you,’ she grumbled, falling in beside him. ‘Why do you have to be such a grump?’
Her words cut deep. Stopping, he did the only thing he could think of to show he cared: he bear-hugged her, lifting her clear off her feet and twirling her around so that her legs swung out like Maypole ribbons.
‘L-L-Leggo,’ she gasped finally. ‘I c-c-an’t breathe.’
Gabriel quickly set her down and apologized.
‘Don’t be sorry,�
�� Raven said. ‘I love it when you hold me. Makes me feel all warm and happy inside, like I did when Dad was alive.’
He smiled, silently pleased, and offered her his hand. She grasped it and together they walked to the corner. A tumbleweed came bouncing up the street. They dodged it, laughing, and crossed over. The buildings were spaced farther apart now, exposing them to a cold wind blowing in off the desert. It tugged at Raven’s hair, threatened to blow Gabriel’s hat off and swirled dust around them. The lightweight wool coat her mother had bought her in Old Calico wasn’t much protection. She shivered and cuddled close to him as they continued on.
‘I’ll be glad to get back to California, won’t you? Least there it’s warm most of the time.’
Before Gabriel could reply, a man stepped out from a dark doorway and confronted them, a pearl-handled, nickel-plated pistol in either hand. Telling Gabriel to raise his hands and warning him not to move, he added: ‘So much as twitch an’ I’ll gun you down.’
‘Do I know you, mister?’
‘No, but I know you.’ Under the brim of the little man’s gray plantation hat his narrow-set eyes were rat-mean. ‘You’re Mesquite Jennings, the outlaw.’
‘No, no, he’s not,’ Raven said quickly. ‘He just looks like him. Everybody says that, don’t they, Pa?’
‘Shut up,’ the little man snapped.
‘Tell him, Pa,’ Raven urged. ‘Tell him who are. Tell him you’re my father, Sven Bjorkman.’
‘Hush,’ Gabriel said, deadly soft.
‘Pa-aa,’ began Raven.
‘I told you to shut it,’ the little man said. He turned to Gabriel: ‘I recognized you soon as you entered the cantina. Would’ve braced you then but I figured you might have partners in there.’
‘So you hid in the dark like the yellow-gutted weasel you are,’ Gabriel taunted.
The little man grinned. ‘Sticks an’ stones, mister. Can insult me all you like, it don’t fret me none. Catchin’ you is like kissing a rainbow. I’ll be famous. Folks will point at me an’ say “Look, that’s the man who caught Mesquite Jennings”.’ He thumbed the hammers back on both pistols. ‘Now, drop your gunbelt. Easy,’ he warned as Gabriel reached for his belt buckle. ‘Reward says alive or dead.’
‘Please, mister,’ Raven begged. ‘You’re making a terrible mistake. If you don’t believe me ask the station agent, Mr Dunbar. He’ll tell you. We just came here from Old Calico to bury Momma and he’s lookin’ after the coffin. It’s in the shed there,’ she pointed toward the train depot.
For an infinitesimal moment the little man’s eyes followed her finger – and in that moment Gabriel, gunbelt now unbuckled, lashed out with it. It struck the man across his face, the weight of the heavy Colt in the holster stunning him so that he staggered and fell to his knees. Gabriel quickly swung the belt back the other way, this time striking him on the temple. He went sprawling on his face.
Gabriel was on him instantly. Face black with rage he began pistol-whipping the unconscious little man.
Raven flung herself on Gabriel, both hands grasping his flailing wrist, begging him to stop. ‘P-Please, please,’ she cried out when he ignored her, ‘No more, Gabe! Stop it. Please! You’ll kill him!’
It took a few moments but finally Gabriel stopped. He stood there, chest heaving, eyes afire, hands trembling, until his rage gradually faded. Then with his toe he rolled the little man onto his back. Though inert and bleeding, he was still breathing.
‘Reckon now you know why I didn’t want to bring you,’ Gabriel said. ‘Low-down jaspers like him, they’re hiding around every corner just waitin’ for the chance to pick up their blood money. Been lucky so far. But luck can’t last forever. Next time, who knows? Might be my last.’
‘Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!’
‘Denyin’ it won’t change the truth. Won’t change who I am, either. Why’d you stop me anyway?’ he asked.
‘’Cause you might’ve killed him. Then you’d be a murderer.’
‘Most folks think I’m that now.’
‘I don’t care what most folks think. You’re no murderer. You may have shot men, even killed them, but they always had a gun in their hand, didn’t they? Didn’t they?’ she repeated when he didn’t answer.
‘Reckon.’
‘That’s the difference.’ She waited for him to buckle on his gunbelt before adding: ‘I couldn’t love you, Gabe, if you were a murderer. Momma couldn’t have either.’
Gabriel shot her a sidelong glance then picked up the two shiny, pearl-handled six-guns, looked at them contemptuously and heaved them into the middle of Railroad Avenue.
‘Know what?’ Raven said. ‘When I first saw this fella, I thought he was that gunman you don’t like, the one who stopped at our farm to water his horse, remember? Man you said was so fast on the draw?’
‘Latigo Rawlins.’
‘That’s him!’
‘Me, too,’ Gabriel admitted, ‘till I saw his pistol grips weren’t ivory.’ He spat, disgustedly. ‘Latigo’s many things, most of ’em on the devil’s list. But he’s no pansy. He wouldn’t be caught dead packin’ pearl-handled iron.’ Taking her hand, he led her along Silver Avenue to the Commercial Hotel.
CHAPTER FIVE
Gabriel stayed awake that night. While Raven slept in the bed, he sat in a chair, blanket draped around him, gun in hand, ready to shoot anyone who tried to break in.
Next morning, before the first rooster crowed, they loaded the coffin into the wagon and drove out of Deming.
The sun hadn’t yet cleared the distant, silhouetted peaks of the Cooke’s Range. In the gray light before dawn the desert looked bleak and desolate; unfriendly. A cold gusting wind out of Mexico cut through the passes in the Florida Mountains and came moaning across the scrub-covered wasteland, chilling their cheeks and blowing sand into their eyes, making them water.
Behind them the town grew distant, the man-made forest of water towers and windmills finally disappearing behind a graveyard of rocky outcrops. Soon there was nothing but them and the empty desert, the creak and rattle of the old wagon and the steady, rhythmic thudding of the horses’ hoofs the only sounds disturbing their thoughts.
Never a talkative man, Gabriel was quieter than Boot Hill before his morning coffee. Today was no different. Mind switching back and forth from Ingrid to Latigo Rawlins, he remained quietly vigilant in case some other bounty hunter decided to try to bushwhack him for the reward.
Raven, seated on the wagon-box beside him, was used to his moody silence and left him alone. Coat collar pulled up around her ears, hands stuffed in her pockets, she closed her eyes and tried not to think about how much she missed her mother.
Occasionally, she turned her head to check on the Morgan striding freely alongside the wagon. At first when she realized Gabriel wasn’t going to tie Brandy to the wagon, she’d protested, arguing that something might scare the temperamental stallion, perhaps even chase him off into the desert where he could get lost. But she was talking to a deaf ear.
‘My luck ain’t that good,’ Gabriel told her sourly, and refused to discuss the matter further.
Gradually the sun came up, streaking the mauve sky with pastel pinks and yellows. And with the sun came the relentless heat.
For the first six miles the trail followed the old Butterfield Stage Line route to Las Cruces. The ground was hard and rutted by years of stagecoach wheels, and the jolting ride soon made their buttocks sore. But neither man nor girl complained, preferring to bury themselves in their grief as they tried to understand why the woman they’d both loved in their own individual way had so suddenly and senselessly been snatched from them.
After two hours or so, Gabriel pulled off the trail and stopped in the shade of some rocks. Building a fire, he heated a pot of coffee, sliced up a hunk of bacon and fried the strips in a pan. Next he took his last six eggs from a padded cigar box and cracked them into the hot sputtering grease. He spooned the grease over them till the whites were crispy brown; then when t
hey were cooked to his liking, he wiped the pan clean with three buttermilk biscuits that had been wrapped in a kerchief and shared the food with Raven.
She eyed the biscuits suspiciously. ‘How long you been carrying ’em around?’
‘No more’n a month.’
‘Hah! You didn’t buy ’em on the train so you must’ve brought them with you from Old Calico.’
‘Either way, they won’t break more’n a few teeth an’ you got teeth to spare.’
‘I intend on keeping ’em too, thank you.’ Raven broke off a piece of biscuit, slipped it into her slingshot and fired at a nearby cactus. Her aim was true and a spiky limb broke off. ‘Well, reckon now I don’t have to worry about fillin’ my pockets with stones.’
Gabriel ignored her and dunked a biscuit into his coffee. It took a few moments before the biscuit was soft enough to eat; then he slowly munched on it, savoring each morsel.
Curious, Raven did the same with her biscuit. It didn’t crumble and fall into the coffee like soft biscuits did and tasted better than she expected.
‘Well?’
‘Tolerable,’ she admitted.
He grinned inwardly, knowing how much it irked her to admit he was right, and went on eating as if she hadn’t spoken. It pained him to talk so much, but he knew it was keeping her mind off her mother’s death and that made it worth the effort. Trouble was he was running out of things to say.
Sopping up the last of the egg yolk with his last bite of biscuit, he chewed contentedly before finally swallowing it.
‘Mm-mmm … nothin’ better than the taste of buttermilk biscuits.’
‘That’s what you said about the berry pie I made you. Remember? When Momma invited you to dinner? Said it was the best tasting—’ she broke off, the thought of her mother bringing tears to her eyes.
Hoping to cheer her up, Gabriel said: ‘Folks say the Good Lord labored six days makin’ the universe an’ rested on the seventh. But I’m here to tell you it ain’t so. On Sunday He created buttermilk biscuits.’
‘That’s sacrilegious.’