Doubtful Canon (13 page)

“That’s something,” Miss Giddings said. She studied Whitey Grey. “But that money…if it’s still there…don’t you think that belongs to…?”

“John Butterfield’s dead,” the albino cut her off. “Been dead a long time. Your pa and everyone on that stagecoach is dead, ’ceptin’ me. There ain’t no Overland company no more, and Wells, Fargo and Company ain’t gots no claim on that gold. Nobody else does, neither, but one. I figure that’s me. Figure I deserves it, and the boy’s makin’ good sense. You deserve it, too. Some of it, I mean. Iffen you wants to, I’m willin’ to take you on with my other pards.”

“Pards?” She looked skeptical. “Why on earth did you bring these children here?”

“They come of their own accord.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely true.

She started to say something, probably a protest, but Whitey Grey started again. “You ain’t gots to come with us. You can wait here by your lonesome, hope ’em Apaches don’t come back, hope no contrary bandit decides to spend the night here. I ain’t hankerin’ to stay in that cañon any longer than I gots to. The chil’ren and me gots us two centipede cars hobbled over at the S.P. tracks near Stein’s Peak. We get the gold, today, and get out of here…today, tomorrow at the latest. Light a shuck back to Lordsburg. That’s….”

He never finished. Whitey Grey had a keen sense of hearing, detecting the horses before I heard the
clattering
of hoofs. A moment later, I spied a figure galloping along the road, reining up in a hurry and staring at the house. He was dressed like a cowhand, striped britches shoved inside tall boots, clad in a linen duster over a bib-front shirt, a black Stetson pulled low on his head, mounted on a tall sorrel horse while pulling a saddled buckskin behind him. I couldn’t make out his face, but could tell he wore a gun belt, although he kept his hands away from the holstered revolver or the rifle in the saddle scabbard.

Whitey Grey slammed shut the door, barred it—something Miss Giddings had forgotten to do—and jerked the Winchester from my hands, then, crouching, moved to the open window.

“Tarnation!” he said. “I knowed we shouldn’t have lit that fire. That
hombre
’s smelt our smoke, knows we’re here. Wants my gold, I warrant, but I gots too many pards already. Well, I’s gonna fix his flint.”

“He’s not an Apache,” I said. My eyes widened in horror as the albino brought up the Winchester and took aim at the mounted figure who kept calling out a loud, and friendly: “Halloooo!”

“No, sir, he ain’t,” Whitey Grey whispered, and grinned. “But they’s all kinds of snakes in Doubtful Cañon.”

“You should know, Whitey,” came a cottony voice from the rear window.

Everyone but Whitey Grey whirled to see a handsome man leaning inside the back window, a deadly Remington revolver pointed at the albino’s back. Grey had too much experience to spin. He just muttered an oath, and took his finger off the Winchester’s trigger.

“Put the rifle down, Whitey,” the man said. “Or I’ll put you down.”

With another curse, Whitey Grey let the Winchester topple out the window. Slowly, raising his hands slightly, he faced the gunman.

I knew this dark-haired man, but couldn’t place him until he climbed through the window, lithe as a cat. “It’s all right!” he yelled to the man on horse-back. “And the coffee’s on!”

He wore a black hat, red shirt, and canvas jacket, sporting two holsters on a shell belt around his slim waist, and gray trousers tucked inside tan boots with mule-ear pulls flapping on the sides.
The boots.
I’d seen him trying them on back at Mr. Shankin’s store in Shakespeare.

“Comfortable,” a second voice said a short while later, and I studied the other man, now standing in the door. He swept off his Stetson when he saw Eleora Giddings.

“’Morning, ma’am. I’m….”

“Curly Bill Brocious,” I said.

The man by the window laughed. “You’re famous, Billy.”

“It’s good to be that way.” Brocious pulled the hat back over his dark locks. “Sometimes. Yes, ma’am, the kid’s right. I’m William Brocious, but my friends call me Curly Bill. Over yonder’s my friend. We call him Dutch, but his name’s Johnny Ringo.”

Brocious picked up the old Henry repeater, studied the bullet-splintered stock, and pitched it out the open door.

After shoving the Remington into the empty holster on his left hip, Dutch Ringo tipped his hat. “John Peters Ringo. Didn’t mean to give y’all a fright,” he said. “But didn’t want to get shot dead, either.”

“Especially since we’re friendly folks,” Brocious added. “Coffee sure smells inviting.”

“Only gots one cup.” Shuffling his feet, eyes darting, Whitey Grey mumbled his words.

“No biscuits?” Ringo said. “No bacon or slumgullion or fried quail eggs?”

“We haven’t had anything to eat in a ’coon’s age,” Jasmine said.

“Well, that’s not healthy,” Ringo said. “Not healthy at all. Kids and, likewise, grown-ups need to eat. Curly, put our horses in the corral, bring in our saddlebags. We’ll have us a veritable feast. But I’d feel more comfortable if you…”—he jutted his jaw toward the albino—“would kindly toss your Colt outside. Slowly, Whitey. Very slowly.”

“You want my gun, too?” Ian Spencer Henry asked.

“Huh?”

“My gun? Do you want it, too? It’s my Pa’s, though, so I’d like it back. He’ll whup me good if I lose it.” Ian Spencer Henry fished out the old Army Colt, which prompted a short chuckle from both gunmen.

“That’s all right, son,” Ringo said. “You keep it. Might have need of it if we run into bandits.”

“Or Earps,” Brocious said with a laugh, and walked outside.

Famished, we ate heartily, greedily, devouring fried bacon, cold tortillas, and posole, and a fresh pot of coffee that Dutch Ringo made more to his liking. Brocious even passed out peppermint candy sticks to the three children. It was a feast. After we ate, stretching out on the hard floor, enjoying our candy while Brocious fetched knife and tobacco plug from his pocket and leaned against the door frame, keeping, as Ringo had suggested, one eye on the cañon road and the other on Whitey Grey.

“So,” Ringo said, nodding at the pale man. “You finally decided to dig up that gold.”

“You been trailin’ me, Ringy?” the albino asked.

“Not at all. I hadn’t given you a minute’s reflection since Arkansas, Mister Grey. Not until Curly and I overheard this boy.” His head tilted at me. “Back in Shakespeare.”

My eyes tried to avoid the albino’s murderous glare, and, when I worked up enough courage to look at my two friends, their angry faces said I had betrayed them as well. “I…I didn’t know,” I said.

“It’s not his fault,” Ringo said. “Curly and I were on our way to Tombstone, but, well, Curly wore out his welcome last year after a little accident involving the marshal there. And, oh, we reckon that money you claim is still in the cañon is more tempting than trying to buck the tiger or finding some beef for the Clantons to sell.”

“Twenty years,” Brocious said, failing to stifle a burp. “What makes you dead certain it’s still there?”

Whitey Grey didn’t answer until Brocious aimed the Winchester at his abdomen.

“Man has to know where to look,” the albino said. “Then he has to be able to gets it. I reckon it’s still there.”

“So.” Ringo tipped his head back. “The lady comes to see her daddy’s grave. You come for the gold. Curly and I decide to place our bets on you. But why three shirt-tail kids?”

“They’s my pards,” Whitey Grey said. “This lady’s my pard. You ain’t my pard, Ringy. You neither, Brocious.”

“We are now,” Brocious said. “We shared our grub with you. That cuts us in.”

Leave it to Ian Spencer Henry to interrupt the conversation, and at least ease some tension. “Jasmine, Jack, and Miss Giddings and me are splitting five thousand dollars,” he said. “You want some of that?”

Brocious chortled, and Ringo grinned. “How much gold did you say there was, Grey?”

“I didn’t.”

“Thirty thousand,” Ian Spencer Henry interjected.

“That’s what I thought. Well, I think Curly and I deserve more than five thousand.”

“You might not get anything, but your own tombstone,” Miss Giddings said, her voice tight, but forceful. She didn’t care one whit for Curly Bill Brocious or Dutch Ringo, and I couldn’t blame her. Whitey Grey was one thing. Not that we trusted him, not that he wasn’t cold-blooded, but Ringo and Brocious made my skin crawl. I truly believe, well, most times anyway, that if we did find that treasure, Whitey Grey would give us $5,000. But men like Curly Bill Brocious and Johnny Ringo? They would slit our throats without compunction.

“Apaches killed Mister Spoon, a kindly gentleman who had guided me to my father’s grave,” Miss Giddings said. “Apaches almost killed me. And they attacked Mister Grey and these children yesterday evening. For all I know, those Indians are still there. Or maybe surrounding us, waiting for their chance.”

The two gunmen shot each other a quick stare, and then both men shrugged.

“Life’s like faro. It’s a gamble.” Ringo pulled a bottle of amber fluid out of the saddlebag. He withdrew the cork, took a swig, and tossed the whiskey to Brocious. Whitey Grey wet his lips, but said nothing.

“How do you know him?” I asked Ringo, pointing at the albino.

“Maybe they met in Detroit,” Ian Spencer Henry offered. “Mister Grey’s been in all the big cities. And my ma….” He didn’t finish.

Laughing so hard, Ringo almost fumbled the bottle Brocious pitched back to him. Once he had recovered and had another drink, he laughed again, wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve, and shook his head. “Yeah, I bet he has. I first met him in a
cantina
in Mason County, Texas, some years back. He had just gotten out of prison in Huntsville. When was that, Whitey? ’Seventy-One, right? I was celebrating my twenty-first birthday if I recollect correctly. Rustling, wasn’t it?”

“In the Yuma jail,” Brocious added, “I think it was assault. Who sent you to Detroit? Judge Parker?”

“A misunderstandin’,” the albino muttered. “Demon rum.”

“Uhn-huh.” Ringo took another pull from the bottle and passed it back to Brocious. “Selling rum in the Choctaw Nation, and then busting a bottle over a federal deputy’s face. That’ll earn you some hard time in the Detroit House of Corrections. I was having a drink in a Van Buren parlor house when they arrested him. That’s the last time we ran into each other. Five years ago. That’s about right.”

Ian Spencer Henry scratched his head. “Prison? You mean he’s been in prison?”

“Just about every prison or jail known to man,” Ringo said. “In Texas and Arkansas, I never believed those stories you were telling when in your cups, Grey, but now I’m not so sure. I always thought you were just mad.”

“He gets mad,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “He gets mad a lot.”

“That’s not my meaning,” Ringo said.

My friend pondered this a moment, his eyes darting from Whitey Grey to Dutch Ringo. At last he said: “Oh.”

Ringo caught the bottle again, took a final swallow, returned the cork, and shoved the whiskey back into the leather bag. “Here’s the deal, folks. I’m going to listen to Whitey Grey’s story again. All of us will. If Curly and I decide this story might be true, we’ll join up with you. And we like the split. Five thousand for you. The rest for Curly and me.”

“And the Apaches?” Brocious asked.

“The Apaches don’t get a split.” Ringo laughed at his own joke, shook his head, and told his partner: “My bet’s that those Indians have already lit a shuck. Army patrols are all over chasing those that jumped San Carlos.”

“They’ve hit the cañon twice,” Brocious warned.

“You can back out, Curly,” Ringo said bitterly, his mood turning savage. Dismissing Brocious, Ringo drew a revolver, a Thunderer this time, aiming it at the white-skinned man. “If Curly and I figure that, yeah, you’re just some old reprobate touched in your head, then we’ll leave you be. You can dig for gold, dig for water, or dig your own grave. I don’t care. But, first, Whitey, I want to hear that story.”

“You’ve heard it, Ringy,” the albino said. “Eavesdropped on us a little while ago.”

The gunman nodded. “Yeah. I heard you tell the lady here. Heard you tell it in Mason. And in Van Buren. Curly heard it in Yuma. But this time….” He rested the revolver on his knee, sighted down the barrel. “This time…I want to hear the truth.”

When Grey folded his arms across his chest, Ringo thumbed back the hammer on the double-action .41. “I’d be doing the lady and the kids a favor by killing you, Grey,” he said icily.

With a heavy sigh, the albino sank to his knees, shaking his head. “Happened just like I tol’ y’all,” he said.

“The truth, you ivory-faced cretin,” Brocious snapped. “Dutch here’ll know if you’re lying to us. Dutch always knows a liar.”

The albino muttered an oath, sat back, and shook his head. “Mostly,” he said. “Happened ’most like I said it afore.”

Reluctantly he started again.

We left the station at Franklin. Mister Giddings, old Sam Golden, and me. I volunteered. Was the only hand with enough sand to make the trip across New Mexico, what with Cochise and his bucks on the prod. Mister Giddings, he didn’t like that. Not a bit. Didn’t like me. Didn’t trust me, and he tol’ ’em fellers at the Texas Division how he druther ride with the devil than with ol’ Whitey Grey as his guard. But he didn’t have no choice. The Overland was all but belly-up, Rebs was movin’ through Texas, bluecoat Army was lightin’ out of Texas. He was stuck with me. ’Sides, he did know I was right handy with a six-shooter or rifle. Knowed I could handle myself in a fight.

Yeah, I wanted that gold. Wanted it for my ownself. Thirty thousand dollars? In gold coin? That was temptin’. And it was a long way from Texas to Californy. Mister Giddings knowed that. He wouldn’t let ’em saddlebags, heavy as they was, out of his sight. I couldn’t touch ’em. Nobody could, ’ceptin’ him. And once we come to Mesilla, he up and hired him two other shootists. The Mex and Bruce from Wisconsin. Tol’ Bruce to keep his eyes peeled for Apaches and secesh, but never to take his eyes offen me, neither.

Like I done said afore, we didn’t see much of nothin’ betwixt Mesilla and Stein’s Peak station, and then we seen all that death. Apaches had killed ever’ last soul at the station, run off the stock, put poison in the well. And it happened just like I tol’ this here lady, tol’ these chil’ren. “My word,” Mister Giddings, he says when he’s seein’ all ’em dead folk, and I tells him…“Ain’t no word for it.” And then I tells him…“Smart thing, Mister Giddings, might be to turn back.”

See, I wanted to turn back. Gold or no gold, I didn’t fancy gettin’ myself kilt by no Apaches, and, well, maybe he’d just give up the fight, go back to Texas, see things the way they should be seen. Maybe Mister Giddings would decide that money’d be better suited for him. He said his wife was in the family way. Thought that might change the tune he was singin’, once he thunk on it some. I figgered I might be able to talk some sense into him, but, no, he was one hard-rock customer. He had his orders, he says, says he ain’t turnin’ back. Says we ain’t turnin’ back. Like I say, Mister Giddings had a belly full of gumption.

So we went on. Through the cañon here, and down yonder. Right where we buried Willie Spoon.

That fight happened, too, just like I tol’ it afore. Mostly, anyhows. The Apaches hit us right when we was in the cañon. Shot the Mex and Sam Golden off the box, and I climbed up to get the reins, Apaches yippin’ and shootin’. Air filled with arrows and lead and dust. You seen the cañon. You know how narrow it is. Well, we wrecked. Busted ourselves up pretty good. Bruce got kilt just like I said. And Mister Giddings, he knowed it was hopeless. Knowed we was all done for.

I tells him it wasn’t no such thing. Said we’d get out of here, but maybe I should bury that gold. And he laughed at me. He drawed his pistol, said he’d see me dead afore he ever let me touch the gold. And he run. I started after him, but got into a li’l’ tussle with a Cherry Cow buck. Then I hoofed it to the cañon wall, hobbled as fast as I could, my leg hurt like it was. I’m lookin’ for Mister Giddings, and he comes slidin’ down a little mound, an arrow in his shoulder, his leg bleedin’ somethin’ fierce. He tells me he’s buried the gold.

“The Apaches shall not have it, Mister Grey,” he says. “And nor shall you, you treacherous piece of filth.”

That’s what he says to me. Well, I stare up that hill, and ’neath this juniper I see just a sliver in the rock. Li’l’ cave it is. He’s dropped the bags in there. I ain’t no big man, but ’tain’t no way I can gets in that hole.

“It’s deep, too.” Mr. Giddings, he’s laughing at me. Reckon he was plumb out of his mind.

Don’t matter none. I couldn’t get up that hill, not with a horde of Cherry Cows after us, and, even if I did, I couldn’t wriggle down in that li’l’ hole in the cañon. Now, it’s gettin’ nigh dark, and I knowed if I can just hold out that long, well, maybe…just maybe…. But the Apaches is comin’ with a mind to finish the fight before the sun goes down, and Mister Giddings, he’s just laughin’. Mad he was. But he wasn’t payin’ no attention to me, howlin’, and I taken my revolver and knocked that pistol out of his hands. Had a mind to kill him, I did, him treatin’ me like dirt, him takin’ my money from me like he done. Only here come the Apaches. Then it strikes me what to do. I shoved Mister Giddings out there, into the open. And while ’em bucks are carvin’ him up, havin’ some fun, tearin’ him to pieces, I hightail it back up the cañon.