Swede drew a deep breath. As always when he thought of those days, he remembered the guerrillero he’d shot during what Colonel Sam’s report had called the “examination” of the village of Las Vegas. The guerrillero had been no more than twelve, and the look on his tender face had been one of utter disbelief as he realized he was going to die. He had stared into Swede’s eyes as though Swede had somehow betrayed him. It was the same look Swede had seen on the face of the pudgy storekeeper in Temperance.
At Las Vegas, after the fighting madness died, Swede had been overcome by a violent feeling of self-revulsion at taking the boy’s life, just as he was now seized by that same feeling at having shot the storekeeper. At Las Vegas he had reminded himself that the guerrillero and his friends had been burning American supplies and killing American soldiers, that they’d killed the three Pennsylvania infantrymen whose naked bodies were discovered in the square, bearing evidence of unspeakable torture, their genitals stuffed in their mouths. Now he reminded himself that the pudgy storekeeper had killed the Kid and would have shot him if he hadn’t fired first, but it didn’t make him feel any better.
Swede stood. At Las Vegas he hadn’t had much time to reflect on the matter. Colonel Sam had them on the move again, to fight another battle next day at La Hoya. And now . . .
He spun the 45’s cylinder, listening to the oily clicks, siting the empty chamber beneath the hammer. Who would have believed the way things had turned out? Colonel Sam was dead these many years, shot in the back while under a flag of trace at Huamantla. And Swede? Swede was forty- three. He had one suit of clothes to his name. He was living in the rough and dodging bullets. And he was on the wrong side of the law. The great future that Walker and others had predicted for him had been blown away like straw in a norther.
Swede twirled the .45 once and holstered it. He stared into the trackless desert before him, where shimmering heat waves obscured the horizon, making it dance as though glimpsed in a dream.
“Wish to hell it wasn’t the Kid’s turn to carry the water bag,” he said to Dancer.
3
At precisely noon, a train engine and a flatcar loaded with building materials pulled into Temperance amid a cloud of smoke and a squealing of brakes. The engine bell was ringing busily.
Kirby stood on the engine’s bottom step, wearing a broad-brimmed hat, flannel shirt, and chaps. In one hand were his saddlebags, bedroll, and an old buckskin jacket; in the other hand was a Henry .44 rifle in a leather case.
The railroad had come to Temperance a month before. The station was still under construction, and gangs of sweating men were laying track not many miles to the west, track that would eventually run all the way to Franklin in El Paso County, there to meet other track coming from the Pacific coast. The town had become an advance depot, with stores of wood planking and rails, and work engines on temporary sidings. The hot air reverberated with listless hammering and sawing and the shouts of laborers.
As Kirby stepped onto the rude platform, he was greeted by Marshal Frank Ryan and a hulking man with scarred eyelids and a missing left earlobe. Ryan’s florid face was split by a grin as he thrust out his hand. “Kirby—I was hoping it would be you! Ain’t seen you since a year ago Fourth of July, at the railroad picnic.”
Kirby took the dust-covered-marshal’s hand with rare affability. “Ryan, you old graft grabber. You look like you’ve been working, for a change.”
Ryan removed his hat and mopped his forehead and face. “Just got back from chasing Burdette. We couldn’t even get close to the sonofabitch. I barely had time to put you a posse together.” He plopped the hat back on and indicated his companion. “This here’s Silas, one of my part-time deputies. Can’t afford any full-time ones on what the city gives me.”
Kirby nodded at Silas, who glowered from beneath the rim of his bowler hat. Scar tissue on Silas’s knuckles gave additional evidence of his love for fighting, and Kirby guessed that the earlobe had been bitten off. Silas’s heavy belly suggested an equal affection for drink. He wore two shell belts around his waist and carried a Sharps .50 carbine.
“Silas is going with you,” Ryan went on. “I’m staying here. I’m done in. I got you six other men—all that’d volunteer.”
As they walked from the construction area. Ryan said, “How’s Sarah and the kids?”
“Good.”
“Got time for coffee?”
“I’ll catch you on my way back,” Kirby promised. “Did you get me a tracker?”
“The best—Black George.”
Behind them, Silas hawked into the street. He spoke with the flat drawl of the border states. “You didn’t have to hire no nigger, Marshal.”
Kirby rounded on the burly deputy. “Listen, Silas—I don’t care who this George fellow is, as long as he helps me get Swede Burdette. If you have any ideas about starting trouble, you forget them right now. Have you got that?”
The two men stared at each other.
“Have you?”
Silas cocked his head and smiled insolently. “Sure. Sure, I got it.”
They started walking again: To Ryan, Kirby said, “Any word on those Comanches that have been raiding around here?”
The red-faced marshal shook his head. “Not since last week. Prob’ly they hightailed it back to Mexico. You keep a sharp lookout, though.”
Turning a comer, they saw a crowd around Philpott’s Mortuary. Outside the mortuary, the body of the Arkansas Kid lay propped against a wooden board, arms crossed and a nickel-plated revolver in each hand. The Kid’s eyes stared sightlessly; blood had seeped through the fresh shirt that had been put on him.
Men, women, and children were lined up to have their photographs taken beside this grisly relic. Others observed the proceedings with catcalls and laughter. The rakishly goateed Philpott, who had appropriated the Kid’s pony and silver spurs as payment for his services, was operating the camera.
“Jesus Christ and General Jackson—Philpott!” Ryan’s face went even redder as he bellowed at the undertaker. “What do you think you’re doing? Get that thing off the street before it stinks up the place!”
* * *
Swede crossed the barren landscape at a steady canter. He passed the cutoff he intended to take and marked it.
Farther on, he found a dry streambed running southwest. He rode up the trail a ways, then backtracked and turned down the streambed. He was walking now, leading Dancer carefully, taking care to disturb nothing. Sweat ran down his feet in his heavy socks and high-heeled boots. He could feel blisters rising.
Like any good Texan, Swede hated walking. The worst time in his life had been when he and Kirby were dismounted on the Chickamauga campaign. After that, they’d both sworn never to go anywhere on foot again.
The burning sun had reached its zenith. The only sounds were the clop of Dancer’s hooves and the crunch of Swede’s boots on the rocks. A lizard skittered out of their path. Swede reached for his canteen, thought better of it, and left the canteen on the saddle.
Swede and Dancer exited the streambed on a slab of gray rock. Staying among the rubble, they climbed a small hill, taking their time, making sure of their footing. They topped the rise, walked along it for a bit, then worked their way down and south until they found the trail that Swede had spotted earlier.
Swede looked back the way they had come. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his faded blue wool shirt. “There, let’s see what they do with that.”
He mounted and started off at a canter.
4
“Harry,” intoned the elegantly dressed Mr. Charles Simpkin. “When are you going to get rid of that thing on your lip? You’ve had it three months now, and still one can hardly see it.”
The posse waited outside Weirson’s Low-Budget Stables. Young Harry Ferrante was the only member of the original posse to volunteer for the second. He placed a fingertip on the ghostly black caterpillar that seemed to have taken residence beneath his nose. “I think it looks good. What do you think, Mr. Re
ichardt?”
Karl Reichardt, looking uncomfortable in his starched khaki suit and his pith helmet with its long puggaree, shook his head. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. Karl was a blocky man—big, blocky head, blocky shoulders and hips. He smacked his saddle. “Look at this harness Weirson gives us,” he said in his guttural accent. “It is rotting to pieces.”
He waved a hand across the corral, toward the string of spare horses and the two packhorses laden with supplies and dripping water bags. “I would have made Marshal Ryan a much better price on the animals—much better. But I am not allowed to bid.”
“Ah.” The lawyer, Simpkin, waved a bony finger knowingly. “It’s as I’ve been saying, Karl. The city has an exclusive contract with Weirson—they have to take what he gives them, at whatever price he wishes to charge. I’ve repeated time and time again, the system must be reformed. And the only way to do that is through the ballot.”
The well-bred Mr. Simpkin was from Connecticut, where his family made a fortune selling uniforms to the Union
army—and if the cloth was threadbare and the stitching came apart in bad weather, why that was nothing the other mills weren’t doing, too. After the war Simpkin had come to Texas, where he made another fortune in land speculation and selling cotton shares, wisely changing his politics from Republican to Democratic in the process.
While Mr. Simpkin lectured his companions on the virtues of democracy, two other men sat against the corral rails, drinking beer. The first, a drifter named Canada, was of medium height and wiry, with a bullet-shaped head framed by very short hair and very long sideburns. He was rolling the empty beer bottles across the ground, laughing as they clunked off one another. He belched and pounded his scrawny chest. "Rate we’re going, we won’t make it out of the stables.”
Canada found this remark uproarious. His friend Anton laughed more from politeness. Anton was young, with a round, middle-European face and a short beard. He looked worried. “Canada, how much it cost you to get off work?”
Canada cackled, revealing a missing front tooth. “Didn’t cost me nothing—I ain’t worked since last February. My poke’s gone now, though. If I don’t get me some of this reward money, I’ll have to get a job again.”
Anton, who wore a laborer’s flat leather cap and high boots, fretted. “The foundry foreman makes me promise him five dollars.”
“Don’t you worry,” Canada assured him. “It’ll more than pay off when we get Burdette—and we’ll get him, too. That first posse didn’t have a chance—too disorganized, Silas says. This is the one to finish him. Silas says each man’s share of the reward’ll be fifty dollars if it’s a penny.”
Canada cackled again and unwired the cork to another beer. Warm foam erupted from the bottle and cascaded over his fist. As he raised the bottle to his lips, a low voice cut across the corral.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
Kirby strode through the stable gate. Marshal Ryan and Silas followed him, trying to keep up. Kirby said, “That’s the last drink anyone takes until we’re back in Temperance, or every man of you is off this posse. I’ll chase Burdette by myself if I have to.”
The two men by the corral stood hastily. Anton set his beer bottle in the wooden case. Canada tossed his under the corral rails.
“My name is John Kirby. I’m in charge, if you haven’t guessed it.”
Mr. Simpkin stepped forward, speaking in his mellifluous voice. “Is that Colonel Kirby—of Kirby’s Partisan Rangers?” He extended a hand. “A pleasure, Colonel. We supported different sides in the war, of course, but I remember reading about you in the—”
“That was a long time ago,” Kirby said, ignoring the outstretched hand. “I’m not a colonel anymore. I’m just plain Kirby as far as you men are concerned.”
Kirby walked down the line of men, looking them over silently, green eyes boring into them, making them nervous because his face registered displeasure. He paused in front of Harry, as if deciding whether or not to send the boy home, then he moved on.
Kirby examined the horses, then the pack animals. He tugged at harnesses. He tested knots. He slapped a long, heavy bundle wrapped in oilskin. “What is this?”
Simpkin stepped forward with a smile, pointing to himself and his German friend. “That’s our tent. Colonel—Mister Kirby—mine and Mr. Reichardt’s. We’re sharing. I’m certain there’s room for you, if you’d care to—”
“No tents on this trip. Get it off.”
Simpkin stared blankly at him.
“You heard me; get it off.” Kirby spied a suitcase on the other packhorse. He pulled it from its lashings and threw it on the ground. “Get rid of all this nonsense. This is no camping trip.”
The men looked at each other, then hurriedly repacked the horses. Kirby spoke to Marshal Ryan, “Frank, send gallopers to the Henderson and Bar M ranches. I want a hand from each one to meet us at the head of Red Canyon.”
Ryan gave a low whistle. “Ranchers won’t like that, Kirby. This is their busy season.”
“The ranchers will find themselves in jail if they refuse to comply. Tell them that. I need men used to hard travel, men to handle these spare horses.”
As Ryan started off, shouting for a deputy, Kirby turned to a figure at the far end of the corral—a black man with angry eyes. Unlike most Negroes that Kirby had seen, this man wore his hair long and braided, like an Indian’s, held in place by a leather headband. He was naked to the waist save for a polished brass amulet and a necklace of bear’s teeth. He wore fringed leggings over his trousers.
Kirby advanced toward the man. “You must be Black George.”
The Negro glided away from the rail. He was big, but his movements were lithe as a cat’s. “Reckon I fit that description.”
Kirby extended his hand. Some of the distrust went out of George’s face, and he took the hand with a strong, callused grip. “Heard a lot about you, Kirby. I even seen you once— when they hung Three-Finger Tom Miller over to San Angelo a few years back.”
Kirby nodded, remembering that day. “Marshal Ryan says you’re a good tracker, George. Ever track man?”
“I track anything. Just pay me the money.”
Kirby nodded again. “Sounds reasonable.” He turned, raising his voice. “All right, mount up.”
Kirby checked the brown gelding that Ryan had gotten for him. The horse was better than the rest of the posse’s ragged cow ponies, but not much. Kirby tied his bags, bedroll, and jacket on the back of the saddle and clipped the rifle case on the side. He untethered the horse and led it out in front of his men. “Anyone bring a shotgun?”
The freighter Karl Reichardt raised his hand.
“Good,” said Kirby.
Kirby mounted and addressed the posse. “You men know the terms of your service. A dollar twenty-five a day, plus a share in any applicable rewards—but only if you’re in at the finish. Burdette has about four hours on us, so this won’t be easy. Anyone who doesn’t think he’s up to it, drop out now. You’ll be paid for a whole day.”
No one spoke. The foreign laborer, Anton, and Karl Reichardt looked nervous. Canada pulled on a floppy hat and gave his friend Silas an inebriated wink. Mr. Simpkin brushed a speck of dirt from his plum-colored riding jacket, while young Harry Ferrante could barely contain his eagerness. Kirby said, “Let’s go, then.”
They rode out. George and Kirby led the way, the others following in twos. Anton led the pack animals, while Harry brought up the rear, looking awkward with the string of spare horses.
Marshal Ryan was waiting by the stable gate, clay pipe jutting from the side of his mouth. He removed the pipe as they went by. “Luck, Kirby. Wish I was going with you.”
Kirby turned, permitting himself a smile. “I bet you do.”
Ryan laughed heartily and waved his pipe.
The crowd outside the stables had grown to considerable proportions, Kirby guessed that two-thirds of Temperance must be here. A scattered “Hurrah!” or “Boo!” was raised as the pos
se rode by, but most of the people were strangely, silent, and the little noise that was made died away quickly.
Suddenly a boy darted from the crowd and threw a rock at Kirby, striking him painfully in the knee. Tears rolled down the straw-haired boy’s cheeks. “I hope you never catch Swede!”
Kirby rubbed his knee and stared in surprise. The boy looked uncannily like his younger brother Jeff had looked at that age.
Then Kirby’s jaw hardened. He turned away, and the posse rode out of town.
5
They followed Burdette’s trail west.
“I estimate being on the posse that bags Swede Burdette will be worth a thousand votes in the next election,” Mr. Simpkin told Karl Reichardt through the dust and noise of hoofbeats. “All the citizens of Northern extraction will vote for me, and there’s a solid majority of them in Temperance County. I’ll be a shoo-in. You can’t imagine the value of this type of publicity in a political career, especially if one intends to pursue it on a national level.”
Karl scratched his bushy side-whiskers. Large sweat stains were beginning to spread under the arms of his khaki jacket. “Being on this posse should mean a twenty percent increase in business for me. That will put me back on top of Weirson. ” Karl’s beefy face registered satisfaction—hard work was always good for business. It was that knowledge that had brought Karl to America from Westphalia, where generations of his family had been stablers to the princes of Neheim-Husten.
Simpkin went on. “I’ve been on one of these chases before, you know. Last year. The quarry gave us an excellent five-mile course, then he lost heart and went to ground. Never seen anything like it—no fight in him at all. Let’s hope this one isn’t such a disappointment.”
The Bank Robber Page 2