Apache Moon (2 page)

“I wonder who's winning?” Duane wondered aloud, listening to random shots bouncing off purple mountains and gold mesas.

“I'd give anything for a sourdough biscuit right now, and a cup of coffee.”

She'd lived in cow camps with her father and mother, but never on the desert with a person who knew the terrain even less than she. She wished the Bar T ramrod was there to provide advice, but she and Duane only had each other and the grace of God.

He placed his hand on hers. “We'll cross the border in another few days, and then you can have all the biscuits and coffee you want.”

“
If
we get through these damned Apaches,” she replied.

“We'll get through. This is no time to get discouraged.”

He tried to sound cheerful but entertained reasonable doubts himself. They called it a desert because there wasn't much water, and Apaches were bloodthirsty fiends. The Fourth Cavalry might arrive at any moment, but Duane and Phyllis couldn't travel due to the distant shootout.

He gazed at her curvaceous body and let his eyes linger on her upright breasts pressing against the front of her cowboy shirt. The shooting stopped, the desert was silent for several minutes, and birds resumed their serenade.

“I think we should stay here for a while longer,” she said. “We don't want to run into whoever won the gunfight.”

“You'll get no argument from me.” He leaned closer, touched his lips to her ear, and placed his hand on her breast.

Tall, wiry Federal Marshal Dan Stowe rode a lineback dun stallion toward the main house and barn of the Bar T Ranch. His flat-topped, wide-brimmed silverbelly hat was slanted low over his eyes, and he carried a Remington-Rider Double-Action revolver in a hand-tooled leather holster, slung low and tied down. He also sported a long light brown mustache styled in the flamboyant manner of General George
Armstrong Custer, under whom he'd served in the great Civil War.

Federal Marshal Dan Stowe climbed down from his horse, threw the reins over the rail, and hitched up his britches. He'd come all the way from San Antone with a warrant for the arrest of Duane Braddock, dead or alive. His face was weather-beaten; he had thin lips and a long pinched nose.

A prosperous spread, Stowe thought as he scanned the barn and outbuildings. He heard wood chopping in the distance, while a cowboy carrying a rifle appeared at the corner of the ranch house. “He'p you, Marshal?”

“I'm lookin' for Big Al Thornton.”

The cowboy pointed to the front door of the main house. “Right through thar.”

Stowe climbed the three steps and knocked on the door. It was opened by an attractive matron wearing a gray dress with a white apron. She took one look at the badge and said, “We've been expecting you.”

He removed his hat and made a friendly smile. “My name's Stowe, and I'm here to see Al Thornton on official government business.”

“I'm Mrs. Thornton—have a seat, Marshal Stowe. Could I get you a cup of coffee?”

“If it's no trouble, ma'am.”

He looked her over with the eyes of a whorehouse connoisseur and considered her an attractive sturdy older woman who'd managed not to gain five hundred pounds since getting married. A Navaho blanket
decorated the wall above the fireplace, while a painting of Sam Houston hung from the far wall. Stowe dropped onto a chair, crossed his long, lanky legs, and thought of the mission that had brought him to that remote corner of Texas.

A local cavalry commander named Lieutenant Clayton Dawes had arrested an outlaw named Duane Braddock, also known as the Pecos Kid. But the Kid had escaped with the aid of Miss Phyllis Thornton, daughter of the man with whom Stowe was about to speak. The Kid had allegedly shot two people in cold blood, and that was all Stowe knew so far about the violence in Shelby. The accuser, Lieutenant Dawes, was currently on a scout, expected back in a day or two.

Mrs. Thornton returned with the mug of coffee, which she passed to the lawman. “I'll get my husband now.” Then she paused. “I hope you don't have bad news.”

“Not as far as I know.”

She disappeared down the hall as Stowe sipped the coffee, thick and black, cowboy style. Stowe had been a cowboy once and found the work arduous, the pay minuscule, and bunkhouse life a bore. He'd been a lawman for five years and liked the work better than anything so far. You had to outthink your man, and that made the chase interesting.

A powerful-looking, white-haired man appeared, wearing a rawhide vest over a brown shirt with flowing
sleeves. “Don't git up, Marshal,” he said. “What can I do fer you?”

“I'm afraid I'll have to ask you some questions, Mister Thornton.”

Big Al sat on the sofa, leaned forward, and spread his hands. “I know what yer a-gonna ask afore the words're out'n yer mouth. You want to know all about Duane Braddock and my daughter. All right—I'll give it to you straight from the shoulder. Duane Braddock come here from out of nowhere, and it was brandin' season, so I hired him on the spot. Accordin' to the ramrod, he was a hard worker, but he had a firecracker temper and made an enemy of a rancher named Jay Krenshaw, who hired a fast gun called Otis Puckett to kill him. Ever heard of Puckett?”

“He operated out of Laredo, far as I know.”

“Duane outdrew him in a fair fight, although there's some that said Duane's dog distracted Puckett, but Puckett was a professional and I don't think he'd let a mutt interfere with a fast draw. Then Krenshaw tried to shoot Duane in the back, but Duane managed to get off the first shot.”

Stowe rubbed his lantern jaw thoughtfully. “Sounds like self-defense to me.”

“That's what it was. Hell, ask my ramrod. He was thar. So was most of my cowboys. They was a-givin' Duane a party, ‘cause he was a-gonna marry my daughter.”

Before Stowe could ask another question, Martha
Thornton spoke. “Duane doesn't have a bad bone in him. Sure, he's a little hotheaded at times, but so're a lot of other people I could name, like Lieutenant Clayton Dawes. In my opinion, the lieutenant exceeded his authority when he arrested Duane.”

“With witnesses like you,” said the marshal, “any judge in his right mind would let Braddock off. Why'd Braddock make a run for it?”

Big Al replied, “Put yerself in his mind. He's only a kid, fer chrissakes. They didn't have a stockade, so the lieutenant tied him to a wagon wheel, and Duane was afraid somebody might shoot him in the back, plus there's injuns in the territory. My daughter understood how he felt, so she turned him loose. I reckon they're headed fer Mexico, if'n the Apaches ain't caught ‘em yet.”

“As far as I'm concerned,” Marshal Stowe replied, “they're still at large. What can you tell me about Braddock's background?”

“Accordin' to what he said, he was raised in a Catholic monastery in the Guadalupe Mountains until a few months ago. He went thar when he was one year old, because his parents was dead. His father was an outlaw name of Joe Braddock—ever heard of him?”

“I saw Joe Braddock's name in our files before I left San Antone. He was a real bad egg.”

“His mother was a dance-hall girl, and Duane don't even know her name. They wasn't married, and
Duane is embarrassed about how he was borned. I wouldn't mention it if'n I was you.”

Stowe unbuttoned his shirt and took out the warrant. “I'll do whatever's necessary to bring him in. I understand that he's also shot men in other jurisdictions.”

Mrs. Thornton sighed as she sat beside her husband on the sofa. “Duane's a peaceful boy, but folks won't leave him alone. He was a good hand, and the men in the bunkhouse liked him, but he made an enemy out of Jay Krenshaw, and that's how it started.”

Stowe slapped the warrant with the back of his hand. “Of course, if the lieutenant drops the charges, I won't have to go after Braddock. I don't know where that puts your daughter, since she helped him escape.”

Mrs. Thornton tried to be brave, but her one and only child was on the dodge. Big Al placed his arm around her shoulder as he said, “I've hired a lawyer in Austin, and he'll git ‘em both off. If Duane wasn't guilty in the first place, she had a right to turn him loose.”

“I have no warrant for her arrest,” Stowe said. “She's a free citizen as far as I'm concerned.”

Big Al glanced at his wife. “I'd like to speak with Marshal Stowe alone in my office, if'n you don't mind.”

He led the lawman down the corridor to a small room with a desk and an old Confederate flag nailed
to the wall. Big Al dropped to his favorite chair and looked into the marshal's eyes. “Let's you and me understand each other. My daughter is the most precious thing in the world to me. If'n you bring her back, I'll give you two thousand dollars, cash on the barrelhead, no questions asked.”

Never, in Marshal Stowe's law enforcement career, had he been offered such a fat bribe. It was as much as he earned in two years! Ordinarily he'd turn it down, but
two thousand
dollars? Before he could answer, Big Al raised his right hand and said, “You don't have to break no laws or violate no oaths. All I'm askin' is do yer best to git her out. Here's a hundred for expenses, and you'll git the rest in cash when she's in this house.”

Big Al stuffed the cabbage into Marshal Stowe's shirt pocket, the lawman never said a word, and both knew that the deal had been cut. “Give me a description of Braddock,” Stowe replied, “and would you have a daguerreotype of your daughter lying around?”

Duane and Phyllis spent the morning in their little hidden spot in the desert. There was nothing to do except be together, and that's how they spent most of the time. Finally, in midafternoon, Duane said, “Maybe we should move out. If we don't find water soon, you know what'll happen.”

They broke camp, packed their few belongings,
and saddled their horses. Their faces were covered with dust and perspiration, and they hadn't bathed since Shelby. The next few days would be the most difficult and hazardous of their lives. She took off her hat, wiped her forehead with the back of her arm, and said, “My father told me once that if you get into a fight with injuns, make sure you save the last bullet for yourself.”

They rode their horses out of the small protected area and encroached on the open desert. In the distance, mountain ranges and lone buttes were silhouetted against the pale blue sky. Sparky ran to the point as Phyllis steered her horse closer to Duane's. She said, “If I don't make it, just remember that I loved you, and I always will, whether I'm in this world or the next.”

He grinned. “Hey, cowgirl, don't get morbid on me. Someday we'll tell our grandchildren about how we crossed Apache territory together, when we were young, loco, and running from John Law.”

Marshal Dan Stowe made his way toward the bunkhouse, his belly full of beef and potato salad prepared by Martha Thornton. He couldn't stop thinking about what a man could do with two thousand dollars. I'll go to Frisco, or maybe back to Michigan to see the folks. I could buy some nice farmland or a cabin in the woods.

His mind filled with possibilities, for he was a man of many dreams, none of which had come true. One of his fondest long-held ambitions was a trip to England, where his ancestors had lived. A man could have a big time in London on two thousand dollars, or he could invest in stocks and triple his money in a year. Marshal Stowe read newspapers avidly and knew about industries springing up all over America, as towns followed railroads into previous uncharted territory. Fortunes were being made every day, and men like Cornelius Vanderbilt and William Backhouse Astor were richer than most kings.

The bunkhouse was filthy, beds unmade, clothing flung everywhere, cigarette butts on the floor, and pictures of women nailed to the walls. “Anybody here?” he asked.

An old cowboy hat craned around the corner. “Who ya lookin' fer, Marshal?”

“The ramrod.”

The cowboy came into view, wearing a dirty blue-and-white-striped apron. “He's on the range with the rest of the crew, but I'm the cook, and I'm the onliest one who stayed behind, outside of the guard. My name's McSweeny, and I ain't wanted fer nawthin', far as I know.”

“If you're the cook, then you must know Duane Braddock.”

“I knew ‘im about as well as you can after a-livin' in this bunkhouse with ‘im fer about a month.
Braddock kept by himself, and weren't the most talkative person I ever knew.”

“Did you see him shoot Otis Puckett?”

“I was a-standin' about as far from Puckett as I am from you right now, and it was self-defense all the way. Puckett braced Duane, not the other way around. If Duane didn't haul iron, he'd be pushin' up daisies right now. Then that no-good skunk Jay Krenshaw tried to shoot Duane in the back, but Duane was a-ready fer a trick. The Kid's fast—no doubt about it—but he din't start the fracas. I'll swear to it on the Bible, and so will every other man in this bunkhouse, includin' the ramrod.”

“If he was innocent, then why'd the lieutenant arrest him?”

McSweeny shrugged. “Because Duane used to go with his wife, if yer know what I'm a-sayin'.”

“While she was married to the lieutenant?”

“Afore she met the lieutenant, and most of us think he was jealous of Duane.”

“Sounds like all the women in this area went loco over Duane Braddock.”

“No tellin' what a woman'll like, but you wouldn't want to rile him, no sir. I've never seen a temper like Duane Braddock's once't he gits a-rollin'. He damn near beat Jay Krenshaw to death about a week afore the shootin'. Never seen nawthin' like it in all my days. Busted his nose, broke his jaw, and knocked out all his front teeth.”

“How'd he outdraw Puckett?”

“He was just a leetle bit faster. But that's all it took.”

“It's quite a story,” the marshal allowed. “Braddock gets out of a monastery and a few months later he's shot all these people? It doesn't add up.”

“Things was peaceful afore Duane showed up, but since then we've had two funerals, and God only knows where the boss's daughter is right now.”