“This polecat had rare luck, I’ll tell you that,” Fiske later confided to Cray. “He must’ve guessed you’d keep Harp in the house, ’stead of sendin’ him back to Box 10. And he must’ve guessed you’d put Harp in your spare bedroom—”
“Which only goes to prove that the killer is a local man,” frowned Cray. “It’s common knowledge that I use our spare bedroom for patients who have to be kept under observation. A stranger wouldn’t know, Rube, but damn near everybody else would.”
“Includin’ any of the Garcia boys,” said Fiske, gnawing at his underlip.
“Or any one of a hundred other local men,” Cray soberly pointed out.
Like wildfire, the grim news spread across the big town, to be discussed in shocked undertones by apprehensive housewives, or loudly and with inflammable indignation by the men of Ortega in saloons, pool parlor s and barber shops. Feeling was high, and the prevailing tension was all too apparent to Jim Rand, whose sympathy for Deputy Vurness was increasing by the minute. It seemed the tribulations of that youthful badge-toter were multiplying at frightening speed. If ever a tyro lawman needed the friendship and advice of an older man …
At the MB Corral, which proved to be one of the town’s larger livery stables, Jim and the Mex found the proprietor squatting by the rear door of the barn, immersed in a brand-new Bible. He gestured in a preoccupied way to the empty stalls, in response to Jim’s query.
“Help yourselves. Off saddle your own animals. Leave your gear in the far corner—and pay me on your way out.”
A few moments later, having made the big black comfortable, Jim toted his rifle, packroll and saddlebags to where Mort Brinkley sat. He could appreciate the attitude of this scrawny, haunted man, but found it hard to feel sympathy for him. Had the Bible been aged and dog-eared, he might have felt differently.
“Were you always so religious, friend?” he enquired, as he paid Brinkley for the stabling of their animals. “Or did you suddenly feel the urge after Clem Brady died?”
Brinkley studied him through watery brown eyes, licked his lips and mumbled, “The curse is workin’. Any fool’s got to admit the curse is workin’.”
“There’s no real evidence that …” began Jim.
“After Brady, it was Mace Landell,” said Brinkley, “and then the cashier from the Lone Star Bank—and now Harp Drayton.” He shuddered. His eyes dilated, as he asserted, “My days are numbered. Nobody knows who’ll be next. It could be mo—it likely will be me!”
“So you’ve turned to the Good Book for protection,” said Jim.
“It’s too late to beg for protection,” sighed Brinkley. “We’re all doomed. Only thing I can do is beg the Lord to forgive all the evil I’ve done.”
“There’s a lot to be said,” nodded Jim, “for begging to be forgiven.”
“Ah, si,” agreed Benito, with uncharacteristic piety.
“But pessimism never achieved anything,” Jim assured Brinkley, “and optimism is no crime. Remember that.”
As they toted their gear out of the barn and began their search for the Rockwell rooming house, Benito remarked on Brinkley’s condition, and nervously declared:
“In his shoes, I too would be much afraid.”
“In his shoes,” retorted Jim, “I’d be checking on any jasper that toted a grudge against me, that hated me enough to try and kill me. I’m not ready to believe that Drayton was killed by a curse. Somebody tried to shoot him. They missed and, when the slug nicked Drayton’s horse, Drayton was thrown but with one boot still in its stirrup. The killer saw Drayton dragged and probably figured he’d die for sure.”
“Caramba,” grunted the Mex. “You speak as one who looks into the brain of the murderer.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do,” said Jim. “And I’m asking myself is he a townsman—or a ranch-hand—or maybe a homesteader? One thing’s for sure. He was here when Drayton’s friends delivered him to the doctor’s house. He knew Drayton would be laid up in Cray’s spare room.” The shingle of the rooming house was visible now. As he quickened his step, Jim thought of the obvious ease with which the killer had located his victim, and decided, “He’s a townsman.”
“¿Que?” frowned Benito.
“The killer,” said Jim. “I figure he lives right here in town, and knows every inch of it—including the Cray house.”
Jason Rockwell, proprietor of the rooming house, was a somewhat stronger personality than the haunted, apprehensive owner of the MB Corral. Ruddy complexioned, brisk-moving and gregarious, he was willing to air his theories to anybody who’d listen.
“Sure, I was on that jury,” he asserted, while checking them into a ground floor room, “and I guess I was one of the first to vote ‘guilty’ on young Pepi. It took us less than a quarter-hour to decide our verdict. Wasn’t any other way we could vote.” He propped a shoulder against the doorjamb, watched them stowing their gear beside the beds. “As for old Margarita and her curse, I don’t go along with Mort Brinkley or them others—all them hombres that claim she’s a witch.”
“I’m glad to meet another practical man,” said Jim, with a faint smile.
“You’re new in these parts,” Rockwell observed, “so why would you want to buy into our troubles?”
“Let’s just say I feel cheated,” drawled Jim. “When I halted Harp Drayton’s horse, Drayton was still alive. Doc Cray gave him a chance of survival—and then somebody went ahead and finished Drayton off.”
“Yeah—I heard about it.” Rockwell grimaced in disgust. “There ain’t any doubt about how poor Harp died.” And then he added, with spirit, “But I don’t see how Margarita’s curse could be blamed. All it proves is somebody hankered to kill Harp. They tried once, and when that didn’t work, they tried again.”
“That’s how it seems,” agreed Jim.
“And what about the others?” continued Rockwell. “All this hogwash about Pepi’s brothers tryin’ to kill us jurors—it’s crazy. I’ll let you in on a little secret, friend. I’d known Mace Landell for near twenty years, and I’m tellin’ you he ought never have climbed a ladder. I’ve seen him get dizzy just from walkin’ upstairs. He was a feller got dizzy all the time—so why couldn’t he fall off that ladder? And old Clem Brady had a weak heart for many a long year.”
“And McDaniels?” prodded Jim.
“McDaniels shot himself with his own gun,” said Rockwell, “and there’s no real reason to think otherwise. We got a sheriff with enough savvy to check on a thing as simple as that—a feller blowin’ his own brains out. If Rube Fiske calls it suicide, you can bet that’s exactly how it was.”
“You’re probably right,” nodded Jim.
“Those Garcias have had trouble enough,” opined Rockwell. “It’s high time for the loudmouths of this town to quit treatin’ them Mexicans like animals and remember they’re human—just like us. Trouble with Ortega is too many Mex-haters.” He frowned at Benito, then eyed Jim again and declared, “One man is the same as another. It don’t matter a damn if his skin is black, yellow, brown, white or red. The same Almighty made the whole lot of us.”
“There’s a strong anti-Mexican group in Ortega?” frowned Jim.
“A bunch of shiftless no-accounts,” was how Rockwell described them, “with nothin’ better to do. When time hangs heavy on their hands, they go faze some poor Mex that’s tryin’ to mind his own business. Oh, they holler loud, since Pepi Garcia got hung, since Pepi’s ma lost her head and started cursin’ us. They brag about how they’re gonna run the Garcias out of the territory and make Ortega a fit place for Texans.”
“I guess every town,” Jim reflected, “has its quota of trouble-makers.”
And, while voicing that opinion, it never occurred to him that he might be obliged to lock horns with the troublemakers of Ortega in the very near future.
It was 1.43 p.m., when the chuck-boss of Circle W returned from Ortega to unload the supplies purchased in town, and to report the death of Harper Drayton. Circle W was on good terms w
ith all its neighbors, thanks to the sociable nature of its owner, the prosperous and even-tempered Jonah Welsh. The Box 10 owner was one of Jonah’s best friends, and Jonah had also enjoyed a passing acquaintance with the now-dead Drayton.
“I recall old Harp real clear,” he mused. “Can’t say we were close friends, but I sure respected him. Everybody liked Harp.”
“Everybody except the Garcias,” countered the rancher’s beautiful wife. “They hated him—just as they hate you, Jonah, and every other man on that jury.”
After the midday meal, the master of Circle W liked to relax on the balcony of the upstairs parlor, a high vantage point that afforded him a generous view of the best cattle graze in the county. To describe the ranch-house as spacious would have been an understatement. It was massive, a double-storied hacienda-style house surrounded by gardens, a network of corrals, tree-bordered pathways and rows of adobe buildings to house the Mexican servants and the two dozen veteran cowhands, who had remained doggedly loyal to Jonah through the old days of growth and struggle, as well as the time of plenty that now prevailed.
Popular among his contemporaries, but never an impressive figure, Jonah Welsh was now a balding, double-chinned fifty-five year-old with an increasing paunch, rounded shoulders and bowed legs. His height was five feet ten inches, but he looked shorter at this moment, slumped low in a balcony chair, gnawing on the mouthpiece of one of his beloved, bent-stemmed briars, reminiscing through a cloud of pungent pipe-smoke—short, pudgy and no more impressive than any aging local lounging outside a barn or a barber shop.
By contrast, Marcia Welsh was slim, beautiful and still young. In her twenty-ninth year, blonde and blue-eyed, she was the envy of many an Ortega woman, married or otherwise. The security, the life of ease guaranteed by the Welsh fortune, were ample cause for envy, as she well knew. And, on her frequent trips to the county seat, she bedazzled the locals by the quality and color of her raiment—and enjoyed the experience. They had been married two years. During those two years, Marcia appeared to become even more beautiful with every passing day, while Jonah became older, fatter and more complacent. It took a lot to ruffle the easy-going owner of Circle W.
“Won’t you please ride to Ortega and interview the sheriff?” she begged. “You’re the most important man in the valley, Jonah. You have a right to demand his protection—don’t you see?”
“That’s loco,” he scoffed, “but I sure appreciate you feelin’ thisaway, honey. Me—demand protection from Rube Fiske? That’ll be the day. If I needed protection—which I don’t—I sure wouldn’t run to Fiske. I got a double dozen hands on my payroll that’ll back me in any showdown, not that there’s gonna be no showdown.”
“The Garcias …” she began.
“Just a passel of no-account wetbacks,” he growled. “No harm in ’em. Only rotten apple in the whole barrel was Pepi. Well, we got rid of him, and I don’t see as we got anything to fear from the rest of ’em. It ain’t fair to condemn the whole family, Marcia, just because one of ’em turned killer.”
“Are you forgetting what happened to Harp Drayton?” she challenged.
“Harp had an enemy—that’s plain enough,” he shrugged. “But was that enemy a Garcia? There’s no proof.”
“I’m afraid!” she gasped. “Can’t you see that? I’m afraid—terrified—for you!”
“You don’t need to be, honey,” he grinned. “And I sure ain’t fixin’ to ask no help from Rube Fiske. When I ride into town tonight, I’ll be stayin’ clear of Fiske’s office. Me and Mat Cray are gonna play a few friendly hands of draw poker just like any other Monday night, and that’ll be that. I’ll be home by midnight and—if you have another of them consarned nightmares—it won’t be no fault of mine.”
“Trying to reason with you is an exhausting experience,” she sighed, as she rose to her feet. “I’m going for a ride.”
“Ride past the front of the house,” he begged. “You sure set a horse purty and, if you come past the front, I’ll get to see you—and not have to budge from this balcony.”
Lazy, good-humored and complacent, the wealthiest rancher of Ortega County relit his pipe and dismissed all thought of the widow’s curse from his mind.
Four – Fear for the Devil’s Legend
Marcia Welsh had ridden for thirty minutes. Now, before putting the sprightly thoroughbred to the south slope of the grassy rise, she consulted her watch and subjected all the surrounding terrain to a careful scrutiny, assuring herself that her movements were unobserved. Away in the distance grazed the prime beeves of the valley, some Box 10, some KJ or L Bar, but mostly Circle W. She thought of the vast resources controlled by her husband, the extent of his holdings in the more prosperous business houses of Ortega, the breathtaking immensity of his account at the Lone Star Bank. And then, with her heart beating faster, she wheeled her mount and started it moving down the south slope.
A little while later, she rode into the clearing amid the stand of cottonwood far from Circle W range. The other horse was tethered to a low-hanging branch. Its owner was pacing the clearing, impatiently awaiting her coming. She called to him and, grinning broadly, he came towards her. In the center of the clearing they met in a tight embrace, her mouth pressed eagerly to his, his strong arms locking about her trim torso.
“We have to wait so long,” she breathlessly complained.
“It won’t be that much longer,” he assured her, as he took her hand and led her to the fallen log. They seated themselves. She nestled in the crook of his arm, her head resting against his shoulder. “You’ve heard the news, so you know everything’s going according to the plan.”
“Tonight?”
She raised her eyes to his face, studying him eagerly. He chuckled softly and remarked, “You sure do crave to be a widow.”
“It can’t happen too soon to please me,” she bitterly declared. “He’s a fool—a fat, slovenly fool, so smug, so unbearably smug that I could …” She made talons of her hands, “choke him—for the sheer pleasure of wiping that smile off his face!”
“Get a hold of yourself,” he gruffly admonished. “If you can’t hide your feelings, if he ever suspects that you hate him ...”
“Hate him?” she gasped. “I loathe and despise him!”
“Maybe we’d best not wait any longer,” he reflected. “We’re in too deep anyway. I can’t risk fouling up the whole deal by you going off half-cocked and bawling him out.”
“Then you’ll do as you promised?” she asked. “It would be so easy! I’d persuade him to ride with me—to any rendezvous that suits you. And then—one shot is all it takes, darling! Just one bullet—and we’re free. We’d own Circle W, the land, the cattle—all the money!”
“I don’t reckon we’ll need to use you,” he frowned. “It can be handled tonight—if he aims to ride to town …”
“Yes! He’ll be riding in for sure!”
“All right. Maybe it’d be better if it happened in town.”
“And—when it’s all over—we’ll be together.”
“All in good time, Marcia. We couldn’t afford for folks to get suspicious, so we’ll have to wait awhile. I’d say six months at least.”
“Six months. By then, all the legalities should be finalized. Under the terms of his will, everything he ever owned will be mine. First mine—and then ours!”
“Damn right. And worth waiting for, eh, Marcia?”
“Oh—I know the waiting is worthwhile, but …” The beautiful face contorted again, “it’s too bad I had to wait with that—that complacent fool!”
“A complacent fool is easily forgotten,” he consoled her. “When I settle in at Circle W—as your husband—I guarantee you’ll have no cause to remember him.”
“Hold me closer,” she breathed. “Only when you hold me close can I really forget him—and the lonely hours I’ve had to spend without you.”
In this emotional fashion, Marcia Welsh talked incessantly during her tryst with her secret lover, the schemer who had p
romised to rid her of the husband she despised. He didn’t mind the listening, because his opinion of the porcine Jonah Welsh coincided with hers; he had no respect for the Circle W boss—but an avid admiration for what the Circle W boss had won over the years, a fortune in land, cattle, business property and hard cash. The acquisition of this fortune would be a fairly simple matter—simple from the point of view of a man to whom life was cheap, a man unencumbered by scruples. The primary necessity was the speedy demise of Jonah Welsh. Then, after a respectable period of mourning, the brave and beautiful widow would remarry—and who would ever suspect that the new master of Circle W had engineered the liquidation of ‘good old easy-going Jonah’?
Having settled into his quarters at the Rockwell rooming house, the big ex-sergeant was ready to begin his own investigation into the recent tragedy, the effects of which still hung over the valley like a dark, threatening cloud. He had walked to Main Street with Benito in tow. Now, he was eager to be rid of his shadow awhile. Rockwell had described the widow of Saul McDaniels as a level-headed woman and not the kind to become hysterical, but Jim was ill-inclined to take a chance. It would not have been the first time that a woman had screamed and recoiled upon being confronted by the unprepossessing visage of Benito Espina.
“Skedaddle,” he growled. “And stay out of trouble.”
Rockwell had offered him simple directions as to the location of the McDaniels home, a small clapboard dwelling in Ortega’s residential sector. To reach it, he would have to cross the main thoroughfare. As he did so, he caught sight of Sheriff Fiske and both deputies. Robinson had returned from his hurried ride out to Hagen Ridge, only to report that the man responsible for Harp Drayton’s mishap had made a clean getaway, successfully erasing his back-trail.
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