Forty Times a Killer (9 page)

“Give me that!” John Wesley snapped. He grabbed the bottle from the table and threw it into a corner where it smashed into pieces, the golden liquid spilling like angel's blood over the floor. “Now, listen up. We're heading back across the border and heading for Gonzales County. I got huggin' kin there, the Clements brothers. Fine, upstanding folk.”

My brain was fuzzy and I'm sure I had a silly grin on my face. “But your pa—”

“I know what's best for John Wesley, not my pa,” Wes said.

“But, Wes, you promised—”

“Damn you, I promised nothing.” He stared hard at me, then waved a hand around the cantina. “I crossed the border to get away from trouble, but all it did was follow me, like, like some kind of plague. Lookee, three men dead through no fault of my own. Hell, we've only been in Mexico an hour and we've already worn out our welcome.”

Before I could say anything, Wes waved the Mexican over. He'd been jabbering away to a couple peons who'd just walked in. All three regarded us with fearful eyes.

“Hey you, get over here,” Wes yelled.

The little man shuffled over to our table.

Wes said, “You want to invest in my Wild West show?”

The Mexican was confused. “I-I don't understand, senor.”

“Hear that,” Wes said, directing his attention to me. “How are we going to raise money for my show in greaser towns?” He turned to the Mexican. “Get lost.”

The little man scurried away, no doubt thanking his lucky stars that he was still alive.

“On your feet, Little Bit. We're heading back to civilization.”

I rose and staggered a little.

With that casual cruelty that came so easily to him, Wes said, “Hell, just what I need, a drunken cripple.”

“I'll be all right,” I said.

“Sure you will, once the bug juice wears off. You'd better be. The Clements boys don't suffer fools gladly.”

“I'm not a fool, Wes,” I said with all the dignity I could muster.

I saw the flipside of the John Wesley Hardin coin.

“Of course you're not, Little Bit.” He smiled, his hand on my shoulder. “I was just joshing you. Hell, you're going to be my business manager one day, aren't you?”

“Sure thing, Wes.” The alcohol had made me mellow.

We recrossed the Rio Grande and camped that night in a stand of post oak and bois d'arc, a stone's throw from a willow-lined stream where blue and silver fish jumped.

It was way down in the fall. The rain, though intermittent, seemed widespread. Every now and then a shower rattled through the trees. Urged on by a north wind, it soaked everything.

For the first time in my life, alcohol, my beautiful new mistress, showed what hell she could cause. The mescal hangover she inflicted on me was the ninth circle of Dante's Hell.

Wes, of course, was highly amused, and teased me constantly. He made a masterful show of bolting down the cold tortillas and beef he'd brought from the cantina and expressed the wish that he had a bottle of mescal to wash it down.

In addition to a churning belly and my other miseries, my bad leg ached. Once when I moved it closer to the fire, I cried out from the sudden pain.

“What the hell was that?” Wes said.

“My leg hurts real bad,” I said.

“Which one?”

“Which one do you think?”

“Let me have a look at it.”

“I got to take off my pants,” I said.

“Lord a mercy, can I bear the shock?” Wes grinned.

Raindrops ticked from the oak branches and I heard the rumble of distant thunder as I pulled down my pants. The leather and steel contraption around my wasted limb gleamed in the firelight.

“That leg is thin, by God,” Wes said. “Like a stick.”

“Don't you think I already know that?”

“How the hell does it hold you upright?”

“It doesn't. The steel does.”

“Where does it hurt?” Wes asked.

“Up here, right at the top of my thigh.”

Wes's strong, nimble fingers undid the buckles that strapped the cage to my leg, then he set it aside. He looked at my leg again and his eyes flew wide open. “Damn. Take a look at that.”

I looked down and saw what Wes saw. A huge sore—raw, red, deep, and streaked with yellow pus—had formed under the leather strap, caused by its constant rubbing against my skin. The ulcer was about twice the size of a silver dollar and it smelled bad, like rotten fish.

“How long have you had this?” Wes looked queasy.

“It started just after we left Longview. And it's been getting worse since.”

Wes said nothing.

I said, “What can we do about it?”

“I don't know. I'm not a doctor.” Wes picked up the steel brace, rusty in spots. “You can't wear this. The leather will rub on the sore again and make it worse.”

“I can't walk without it.” I felt sweat bead on my forehead.

“Then I'll carry you to your horse. The Clements brothers have womenfolk up in Gonzales County and they're known to be good at patching up wounds.”

“This isn't a bullet hole.”

“I know, Little Bit. It's a sight worse.”

But the worst was still to come. That night the fever struck.

I was burning up, out of my mind with fever as we made our way to the cousins. Time meant nothing to me, but I learned later it took almost two weeks. Wes wasn't happy about it, but he never left me by the side of the trail. The concerned triangle of John Wesley's face drifted in and out of my consciousness.

He held wet leaves to my forehead, and from the far end of a scarlet tunnel I heard him say over and over, “You'll be fine, Little Bit, just fine.”

I remember (or did I imagine?) grabbing him by the front of his coat, babbling to him about the pale men who stood in the shadows, watching us.

And Mage was there. But, unlike the rest, his face was black as mortal sin and his eyes glowed with a sable fire.

They were all there . . . all the men Wes had killed. They stood still as graven statues.

Watching.

Silent as the grave.

“Look! Look, Wes!” I yelled.

A white mule stepped among the trees, a gambler's ghost. On him sat a man who held a walking cane across the saddle horn. The man smiled and made a gun of his fingers and thumb and he fired at the back of Wes's head.

I heard the bang of the pistol as the man's thumb fell, and blood, bone, and brain haloed around Wes's shattered skull.

I cried out in my terrible fear. “Oh merciful Jesu!”

“It's thunder, Little Bit,” Wes said. His face ran scarlet with thin streams of blood and rain. “It's only thunder.”

I clutched at Wes again. “Don't leave me. Wes, I'm sore afeerd.”

“It's the fever. The fever makes a man see things.” He held a cup to my mouth. “It's water. It will help cool you down.”

I drank greedily and noisily. “Did you see Mage? Over there by the post oak. He's come back from hell, Wes.”

Wes smiled. “Hell, you can't see a black man in the dark.”

“And I saw a white mule.”

“A gambler's ghost . . . just passing through.”

I grabbed for him again. “Beware of the man with the cane, Wes.”

“I surely will, Little Bit.”

I lifted my face to the cool rain and opened my mouth to catch the drops. Then I lapsed into a troubled sleep again, my dreams filled with dead gamblers and pretty, laughing saloon girls in rainbow-colored dresses and the man with the cane who pushed me aside with a terrible curse.

Him I feared most of all.

 

 

“You cut it close, Little Bit,” the man's voice said. “For a spell there, I figured you were gonna cash in fer sure.”

The face of a young man I didn't know swam into focus.

“Where am I?” My voice was thin as a wafer.

The young man answered. “At my brothers' ranch in Gonzales County. We're south of a town called Smiley if'n you feel inclined to go on a tear with the whiskey and gals.”

“Not hardly,” I said.

“Figured that.” The man smiled. “The name is Gip Clements. My brothers James, Mannen, and Joe own this ranch, including the bed you're lying in.”

“How long?”

“A week since Wes brought you here more dead than alive.”

“For sure it's winter then. Where is Wes?”

“Talking with my brothers. He plans to help them drive a herd up Kansas way.”

I felt a spike of panic and tried to sit up in the bed. “My leg—”

“Is doing just fine,” Gip said. “Brother Joe's lady says you'll be up and about in no time. Another month, maybe so.”

I pushed down the sheet, terrified of what I might see, and pulled up the borrowed nightshirt. The sore on my leg had shrunk in size and was no longer red and angry. When I touched the puckered skin around the wound there was only a little pain.

“You got Mae Ellen to thank fer that,” Gip said. “She says looking after you was like caring for a little, hurt dickie bird.”

“Thank her from me. Thank her most kindly.”

“You can thank her your ownself. She'll bring you some rabbit and onion soup right soon.”

“When does the herd leave?” I asked. My heart thumped in my chest. If Wes was going, I didn't want to be left behind.

“The gather isn't finished, but I reckon Wes and my brothers will head 'em north by the middle of next week.”

“I've got to be on the drive. Tell Wes I need to talk to him. Better still, bring me my leg brace and I'll go tell him my ownself.”

Gip smiled at me. “Hell, Little Bit, your leg ain't fully healed yet. Strap on all that damned steel and it will open right up again.” He gave me a sympathetic look, or tried to. “Besides, a scrawny little feller that keeps as poorly as you ain't gonna be much help on a two month cattle drive up the Chisholm. That's rough country, to say nothing of fire, flood, an' wild Indians.”

Well, that was a boot in the teeth. But I managed to keep a brave face.

“I'm a good cook,” I said.

“We got plenty of them, good and bad. And assistant cooks.”

“Then I could be the assistant cook to an assistant cook,” I said.

“You'd better talk with John Wesley. He's the one doing the firing and hiring.” Gip shook his head. “Don't get your hopes up.”

The door opened and he said, “Ah, here's Mae Ellen with the grub. Put meat on them scrawny bones o' your'n.”

Gip left and Mae Ellen said, “How are you feeling, Little Bit?”

“Good enough to go on the trail drive,” I said.

Mae Ellen, a pretty, worn girl who probably looked older than her years, smiled. “Not this time, Little Bit. You've got to rest up and get your strength back.”

As she put the tray on my lap, I said, “I want to thank you for taking care of me.”

“You were no trouble. Just like a little sick animal.” She straightened up and worked a kink out of her slim back.

I tried the soup, but it was still too hot. I didn't want Mae Ellen to leave, so I said a stupid thing. “You saw me naked, huh?”

She smiled. “I've seen worse.” She stepped to the door. “I'll be back to look at your leg. Old Ma Atsa is a Navajo witch woman and she gave me a new salve to try.”

“Will it work fast?” I asked.

Mae Ellen laughed. “We'll see.”

Then she was gone and all that remained was a lingering scent of lavender and a lonely, empty space where once a woman stood.

“Damn it all, Little Bit, I had to kill another man. After I shot him, he lingered for a couple days and I just heard he died an hour before sunup this morning.” John Wesley sat on the edge of the bed. “And you can't pin this one on me. It wasn't my fault.”

“What happened?” I said, not really wanting to know.

I mean, Wes was Wes. When a man did or said something he didn't like, Wes killed him.

Simple as that.

“Well, me and a couple Clements boys fell in with some vaqueros, as Joe Clements called them, and one of them suggested a card game.”

“Poker?”

“Nah. Some greaser game called Spanish Monte,” Wes said. “I'd never heard of it before.”

“I saw it played years ago by a couple Rangers,” I said. “Now that I study on it, one of those boys said he was quarter Mexican, something like that.”

Wes looked irritated. “Hell, Little Bit, is this your story or mine?”

“Yours, Wes. Proceed.”

“Well, we played a couple hands and I started to get the hang of it.” Wes held up his left hand and showed the silver ring on his little finger. “I don't wear this ring for nothing, you know.”

But he did.

Wes had no claim to the professional gambler's ring, since he didn't play cards for a living. The few times he tried, he invariably lost and for a while would become sullen and dangerous.

“So we played another hand. All the while them Mexicans are jabbering away in that heathen language of theirs that nobody understands but them—”

“We never had any dealings with Mexicans before,” I said.

“That's because they're all flannel-mouths,” Wes said. “I don't like them.”

“So you played another hand . . .” I prompted.

“Yeah, and I had a queen. I tapped my card and said, ‘Pay the queen.'”

“The queen loses in Spanish Monte, as I recall.”

“Damn it, Little Bit. That's the position the Mex dealer took,” Wes said.

I cut to the chase. “So you shot him.” The rabbit and onion soup lay sour in my belly.

“Hell no, not the dealer. Two other fellers,” Wes said. “Him, I just chunked over the head with my gun and cleaned his plow real good.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Wes held up a silencing hand.

“The two fellers with him rose up and started in to shuck iron. Well, I shot one of them in the gun arm, near took the damned thing off, and t'other through the lungs.”

“And what happened after that?”

“I told you. The Mex I shot through the lungs died this morning. They cut the arm off the other one, but he ain't expected to live either. Lost too much blood, like.”

“What about the law?”

“Hell, there ain't no law in this part of Gonzalez County, except for what a man makes for himself. But the white folks around had a good laugh with me afterward and told me I did a fine thing shooting them two. They got no liking for Mexicans, especially the kind that cheat at cards.” Wes rose to his feet and stretched. “Wasn't my fault, Little Bit,” he said through a yawn. “They should have paid the queen.”

I changed the subject. “Wes, I want to go on the cattle drive.”

He stared at me, the imp of amusement in his eyes. “Little Bit, how the hell would you make Abilene? If things go bad, it could take three mighty hard months to get there.”

“I'll take my chances.” It was boastful talk coming from a skinny pipsqueak with a bad leg and eyes too big for his little pale face.

And John Wesley knew it. “You figure to ride herd, Little Bit? Maybe bring up the drag on a half-broke pony with the wherewithal of a cougar that would like nothing better than to break your damned fool neck?”

Desperate, I lied in my teeth. “Gip said I could be the assistant cook's assistant.”

“Gip said that?”

“Sure did,” I said, blinking.

“You'd carry water and firewood on a gimpy leg?”

“I'd surely like to give it a try.” Then I told another lie. “I'm stronger than I look.”

Wes considered that for a while, then said, “Little Bit, we can't nurse a man who doesn't pull his weight, not when we're driving sixteen hundred head of wild steers up the Chisholm. If you fall behind, we'll leave you.”

“I won't fall behind.”

“Apaches, bears, thirst, hunger . . . that's what you'll face if you can't keep up with the herd,” Wes said. “Best you stay here and make plans for the Wild West show and draw up them business documents that Sam Luck needs.”

“Wes, you're my friend, and you're ramrodding the drive. I want to go with the herd. Don't let me down.”

Wes sighed. “All right, Little Bit, you can help the cook. But don't expect any special favors from me. You drop out, you'll be on your own.”

“Thank you, Wes. I won't let you down.”

John Wesley crossed the floor, picked up my leg brace and tossed it on the bed. “Then get the hell up,” he said, unsmiling. “You've laid there too long.”