“Coming right up, sir.”
Elbert glares over at Willis in disbelief—not at the dude’s misfortune, but at the inconceivable notion that he would choose to spend the entire night in a musty saloon rather than at the hotel . . . with her.
The woman. I had shut her out of my mind like a door against the howling wind. But all at once her face comes back to me, the brush of her gloved hand as she descended the stairs at the hotel. A pang of guilt kicks angrily inside me. I do my best to push it away.
“Seems a crime, do it not?” Elbert begins, careful to keep his words from reaching the dude’s ears. “Leaving a woman like that all alone? Lord mercy, I could think of ’bout a hundred things I could do with that fine piece of ass and ain’t one of them involve a deck of cards.”
“It is ’cause you are not married, Elbert,” Merle says. “I don’t care how comely a woman is. Some fella, somewhere, has grown bored of her dewiest charms.”
“Might I point out, them two ain’t married neither,” Big Jack says. “What do you think of it, Harlan?”
I down the last of my coffee. “I think the lot of you gabble like a pack of hens.”
“The aces seem to love you today, sir,” Willis says as the Kansan riffles the deck to deal.
“I make no claim to explain the fickle variance of cards, Mister Willis. Their love can turn to ice as quickly as the wind shifts.” Jessup splits the cards and flutters them back upon themselves.
“But I cannot help noticing that the aces favor you considerably more kindly on your own deal then they do on mine.” The dude’s tone makes Jessup freeze. All at once, Avery Willis flies up from his chair and slams a vise grip down on the wrist of the unsuspecting Kansan.
“What the hell?” Jessup cries as Willis rips open the man’s shirt cuff.
“You black cheater!” howls Willis as he pulls the fabric back, exposing the clover of the ace of clubs tethered to the Kansan’s forearm. “I’ll cave your blasted head in!”
Jessup counters with a lightning-quick draw of his forty, which holds steady and unwavering in his left hand, the barrel locked on the dude’s head. Jessup steps back from the table, only then shifting slightly to bring the four of us at the bar into his view. He keeps the gun trained on Willis. “Now listen here,” the Kansan says firmly. “Ain’t no man here need to be a hero or jump into that what ain’t his concern.”
Each steadfast, backward step carries the cardsharp closer to the door, until his free, groping hand finds the knob. I think about the Colts weighing on my hip. The twelve-gauge Merle keeps behind the bar would be the second option. But the Kansas cheater has not aimed his gun at me. Cheating might be wrong from the pulpit, but I feel none compelled—not after Jed Barnes—to catch even a grazing whisper of a poorly aimed slug. It is not my money and not my fight. Willis would be in his rights to draw on Jessup. He might get himself killed. If the gambler were dead . . . I do not even let myself think about it. I push the woman’s face out of my brain as quickly as it rose up there.
“Leave that derringer in your pocket, Willis,” Jessup says as he swings the barroom door open with his leg. The sounds of the street rush in—shouts and laughter and clattering wagons. “You take them chips as your own and we’ll call it square.”
“Like hell we will,” Willis sneers.
The Kansan turns and bolts out into the crowd. I am on my feet and moving, Willis and the others a step behind me.
I catch sight of the fleeing man as he bobs through the crowd and across the road. “There he is!” I point to the Kansan as he unhitches his pony at lightning speed.
“Stop that man!” Willis shouts. Merle’s Mexican bar boy, Rico, looks up at us from the tie-pole where he brushes the dude’s handsome new acquisition.
Jessup hops in his saddle, kicking the pony out of his nap. They disappear into the far alley, no doubt set on the open desert. Merle unleashes a sharp whistle that draws the eye of the Pinkerton sniper on the roof of the Dry Goods.
“Thief,” Merle yells, “on the pony!” The sniper looks back, confused. Merle’s words get swallowed up by the din of the street, leaving the Pinkerton man straining to interpret a charade of points and gestures—to no avail.
“He’s getting away, dammit,” Willis cranes his neck and sees a second Pinkerton man directly over the Jewel, watching over us with some curiosity. “Sir, I have been swindled by that blasted man on the pony!”
“There’s a hanging today,” says the Pinkerton.
“I know there’s a fucking hanging. We still have laws against thievery!”
“Can’t spare a man, sir. We hold our ground. We have our orders.”
“Useless, these Pinkerton oafs!” Willis stomps the ground in disgust.
“Now don’t you worry about the money,” Merle interjects. “He took no cash off the table and all the chips go to you.”
“I will not be cheated!” Willis barks. “It is reputation at stake. Word gets out, every two-bit river gypsy from here to Atlanta will think they can shark Avery Willis!”
“Not one of us will ever speak of it. You have my word,” Merle says.
“Mine too,” offers Elbert.
“And mine,” says Big Jack.
But I see the gambler’s eyes narrow with stony resolve. He pulls from his waistcoat a silver-plated forty-four, considerably larger than any derringer. The gun could take a man down at a hundred paces. He shifts it to his front waistband for a speedier draw.
“Lock up my chips, Merle.” Before anyone can counter, Avery Willis charges past me. “Untie her, boy!” Rico, wide-eyed with fear, paws at the lashing and flicks the horse free. Willis leaps off the porch and lands squarely in the saddle of the unsuspecting filly. A precise heel to her flank, timed with a confident pull on the reins, dissolves any unfamiliarity between mount and rider. The filly flares up and pivots around at the gambler’s command. “Yaah!” Willis cries as the powerful animal sprints forth into the street.
Startled spectators scatter like mice—save for a lone, wretched woman who nearly trips over her own gown. Already at full gallop, Willis orders an elegant sidestep around the woman with an imperceptible tug of the reins, a maneuver that further flaunts the indisputable expertise of a talented horseman.
Merle is the first to find the words that voice our collective sentiment. “Lord, have mercy! That dude can ride.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Pinkertons aim to transport the Snowman from jail to the gallows in the bed of a two-mule wagon, standing upright, by the look of it. The crank gun sits in the back of the wagon, its rotary of barrels pointed out the rear as a formidable deterrent to any ill-advised rescue attempt.
Delmer, the Pinkerton gunner, fusses an oiled rag lovingly over the swiveled base while his grizzled and burly associate, Casey, fastens a heavy iron bracket to a wooden pole that extends skyward behind the driver’s bench. That is where they intend to secure their prisoner, amply guarded, but still in plain view during the entirety of the proceedings.
Casey eyes me with suspicion as I stride past him toward the jail door where Bix, the number-two Pinkerton, stands sentinel. He holds his ten-gauge at the ready and keeps a Remington rifle on his back for good measure. The sight of it reminds me how naked I feel without my Spencer.
“Stop right there,” Bix says, raising a halting palm at me. The two men in the wagon pause from their chores long enough to let me know they are watching.
“Your captain asked for me.”
“What’s your name?”
“Two-Trees.”
“Wait here.” Bix backs away and disappears through the door into the jailhouse. The interior buzzes with activity and voices—that awful, familiar cackle rising above it all. The door slams and I hear Bix announce my name, followed by Mulgrew’s grumbling baritone. The two Pinkertons behind me glare their hateful daggers into my backside as I stare blankly at the door. A second later it opens and Bix summons me through with a discourteous nod.
The Snowman stands a
t the near end of the cell, eagerly gripping the bars as he tries to participate in—or disrupt—the conversation transpiring before him. He lights up when he sees me. “How many’s out there, son? Is it a thousand?”
“Quiet!” Captain Mulgrew lurches up from the sheriff’s desk and whacks the bars with his truncheon, narrowly missing the Snowman’s retreating fingers. “Next time I don’t miss.”
“Harlan, have a seat.” I turn to see Mayor Boone pacing near the boarded-up window. He motions to the only other chair in the room, the chair I used to claim as my own. I ease into it, set my hat down on the edge of the desk.
“Messy business last night,” Mulgrew says.
“I hear it was.”
“What I hear, is that you lit out after that drunkard what drowned himself a whore. My men say he ain’t come back yet.”
“Would you come back?”
The captain glowers at me, his nostrils flaring, a powder keg of indignation. He is not a man accustomed to questions thrown back his way, especially from someone he would rather use as cannon fodder. “You got a lip on you,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Oh, who gives a damn about that?” Boone says anxiously. The mayor steps into the light and I see how worked up he is. He looks tired. Hell, we are all tired. Even the Snowman appears a casualty of sleepless nights thanks to this sordid ordeal of his own creation. “Harlan, I need another favor.”
Boone comes around the front of the desk and leans against it. An engraved, ivory-handled thirty-two sits snug in a pristine leather holster on the mayor’s hip. I cannot recall ever seeing him armed. The hysteria of an impending, violent attack has claimed the mayor as well. “We need someone to cut the condemned from the rope and get him in the box. We’ll have to prop him up for the picture first—that newspaperman has a camera in position—but right after that, you will want to box him up as quick as you can.”
“Why not one a’ them Mexicans what built up the gallows?”
“Would you believe it?” Boone says with obvious frustration. “One of those blasted fools spotted the likeness of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a goddamn pine knot! Took it as a sign. The lot of them run off for the border, clutching that wood plank like it was a holy relic.” His words hang there a moment and then the whole room busts up laughing, myself included. The Snowman finds special delight in the story and falls about himself, cackling.
“That’s enough out of you,” Mulgrew bellows.
“Why me?” I ask.
“Well, frankly, Harlan, it is not for the faint of heart. I figured with your vested interest in the matter—”
“Don’t worry, boy,” shouts the Snowman. “Ain’t no way I’m gonna swing. My gang’ll bust me outta here long ’fore you have to mess with any of that.”
Captain Mulgrew bolts from his chair, his club rising. “So help me God, you will shut your mouth or I will knock you stone out!”
“It’s all a bunch of wasted talk and supposin’,” the Snowman cries, backing away from the bars. His fiendish smile taunts the captain, but there’s a strident, uncertain tenor to his voice, as though the confidence in his impending escape has diminished with every passing minute. The wall clock makes it half past nine.
“That’s it! Gag this cocksucker,” Mulgrew motions to the guard by the front door. The Pinkerton goes to the cell and opens it, producing along the way the cloth strap that will soon find the yellowed bite of the Snowman. “And get him changed out of them rags. He’ll die in that goddamn suit if I have to nail it to his body.”
“Go on, gag me up. My boys know where to find me.”
“And get the barber in here. We’ll cut his hair while we’re at it.”
“You ain’t touching my hair!”
Mulgrew drives his club into the Snowman’s belly, doubling him over as the guard wrenches the gag tightly into his mouth.
“I hate to even ask this of you, Harlan,” Boone says. “But with our being shorthanded, Pinkerton-wise . . .”
“Will you quit sayin’ that?” Mulgrew grumbles. “You got you the finest shots in the valley out there, nearly every badge in the territory.”
“As much as I hate to say this in front of him, Captain, you underestimate the Snowman.”
“And you underestimate my men! Every direction is covered. His gang gets within a hundred yards of this town, the Pinkerton guns will shred every last one to ribbons.”
“Who’s to say they are not already here?” Boone waits for an answer that does not come, so he continues. “Folks been streaming into town for nearly a week now. Hell, I don’t know hardly any of them. His men could have been trickling in, one by one. Maybe they are simply waiting for us to bring him out in the open before they unleash their fury. What are your snipers going to do then, Captain? Shoot into a crowd where the bandits stand shoulder-to-shoulder with honest, God-fearing citizens? It will be a right bloodbath.”
“My agents have not reported anything to support that theory.”
“A girl was killed last night!”
“An isolated incident,” Mulgrew counters. His eye brushes over me. “And one I shall investigate thoroughly as soon as I pull the lever on this sumbitch, here.”
“Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t,” Boone says. “But I tell you this, Captain. We got almost a thousand people out there. Might be twice that by high noon. If I were you, I’d scrape up every last Pinkerton I could find and have them dispersed throughout that crowd.”
“Every agent within a hundred miles is here in the Bend, Boone. All but a skeleton detail at the banks in Heavendale and Agua Verde.”
“Lord sakes, man,” pleads Boone. “There’s nobody left in Heavendale or Agua Verde! They’re all standing out in my thoroughfare, waiting for the show.”
“Thank you, Boone, but this is not the first lever I’ve thrown. I will marshal my agents as I see fit and won’t be told otherwise, not from you or anyone else!”
“Very well, Captain. But God help us all if you are wrong.”
“The bastard kicked me!” the guard tending to the Snowman cries out. Mulgrew charges into the cage, unleashing a beating on the half-dressed prisoner.
Boone comes over to me, exhausted. He wanted this hanging in the first place and now bears the weight of a hundred bad decisions. For once, I feel something close to pity for him. He looks a decade older than he did two weeks ago and that bastard writhing on the floor in his own piss is the cause of it. The cost of the Snowman’s destruction will exact its toll on the people of the Bend for years to come. I am no different. The sheriff. Maria. Taken from me.
“Will you help us, son?” the mayor asks with all that is left of his strength.
“Be glad to.”
The sounds of voices and shuffling feet rise from outside. The door bursts open. Bix jams his head through. “Captain, you better come quick.”
“What is it?”
“Indians.”
Two horses approach from the west in steady, deliberate trot. I know before their faces come into view that the lead rider is Ahiga and behind him, atop the stolen palomino, is Raven. Navajo raiders rage at full gallop when they want blood, and are tougher to hit than swarming mosquitoes. But the brothers employ no such tactic today. Their pace is stoic, even solemn. Guns cock behind me and from the rooftops. “Hold fast, men!” Mulgrew’s breath lands hotly across my neck.
“It’s no war party,” I say. “Ain’t but two of ’em.”
Mulgrew ignores me as he barks his orders. “No man fires without my signal!”
In the light of day, the brothers’ pitch-coal braids seem even blacker, their skin red and weathered. I spot the Spencer across Ahiga’s back, barrel down to show a lack of aggression . . . which I am sure is hard for him.
Their arrival at the sleepiest corner of the Bend spares them the full attention of the raucous throng that mobs the center of town. But a small contingent of spectators gathered outside the jail, no doubt in hopes of an early glimpse of the star attraction, catches sight of the ma
neuvering Pinkertons. Townsfolk fall in behind the line of black-coated gunmen, adding to the edginess of the confrontation. The riders stop thirty yards out, well aware of the two dozen rifles and one crank gun aimed at them.
Ahiga breaks from his younger brother and draws closer. He makes no attempt at English but begins to address the crowd in Dineh. The wind swallows most of his words and the ignorant ears of those in attendance discard the rest. I hear him, though. Enough to understand.
“What’s he saying?” Mulgrew demands.
“A warning,” I say. “The desert belongs to them.”
Raven holds a woven sack down by his side. He starts to swing it, building momentum.
“What’s he got there?” a voice shouts. Raven lets the sack fly. It arcs through the air and lands, skidding and heavy, at the feet of a Pinkerton. The agent toes it with his boot. Something rolls beneath the coarse fabric. He picks up the sack by its corner and out spills a blood-covered stone the size of a melon. It has ears and a nose and what used to be hair.
And then someone screams, “It’s a head! It’s a human head!” The Pinkerton staggers back into Jasper Goodhope as a collective gasp of disgust escapes from the crowd.
Jasper pushes around the black-coat and bends down, horrified. He announces what I already know. “It’s Jed! It’s Jed Barnes!”
A tremendous boom explodes over my shoulder. The air fills with a choking plume of ashen smoke. Women shriek. The gun is close enough that the shock wave pushes against my back. I instinctively step left, keeping my eyes forward. Raven slumps and begins to slide off the palomino. Ahiga springs from his horse to catch his brother, but is too late. Raven is dead before he hits the ground.
I turn to see, right behind me, the smoking muzzle of the engraved, commemorative thirty-two. Boone holds it in his right hand.
“Boone! You bleeding idiot!” Mulgrew storms past me, enraged. The mayor wears an expression of profound confusion. “What in God’s name are you thinking?”
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