Haxan (8 page)

A
ll right, Nichols, I’m listening. But you should know first off I’m not one to push. What’s your business?”

Nichols returned a sharp nod in appreciation. “Neither am I, Marshal,” he began. “You don’t know me, but ask anyone in town. They will tell you I don’t like woolers.”

He made a half-hearted attempt at a pacifying motion. “But I can learn to live with my enemies like the good book says. Up until they scare my cattle away from water. You know how dry it’s been of late. The upper fork of Gila Creek is the only decent tank water that cuts through my ranch.”

“What’s your point, Nichols?”

His eyes glittered like spent bullets. “If Coffer Danby runs my cattle off water again I’ll kill him. I’m giving the law fair warning so there won’t be any misunderstanding when I put a slug through his damn head.”

“You do that, Nichols, and you’ll hang,” I told him. “Danby claims you’ve cut fences and killed his ewes.”

“I know what he’s saying and he’s a goddamned liar. It ain’t me. It’s coyotes killing his rams and ewes.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the chorus of howls emanating from the desert. They became louder as the sun sank behind the mountains to the west.

“It’s like this every night. You can hear them, unless you’re deaf. Scarce water makes them pack in large numbers. They’ll always murder a sheep before they will a steer. Aside from that, I’ve lost calves myself but you don’t hear me crying about it like Danby. I can’t be blamed for what wild coyotes do to his sheep. Rain or no rain.”

“Coyotes don’t cut fences, Nichols.”

“I don’t cut fences, either. I don’t like the goddamn things but I don’t cut them. Until the law says different this territory is free range. I don’t take to being closed up by my neighbours, but I don’t cut them and I never have.”

Nichols hung his thumbs over his gun belt. He wore a Remington Model 1858 in a Mexican holster. His weight rested on his back foot. “I’m warning you, Marshal, I know how to use this gun. If Danby scares my cattle off again, I’ll shoot him down like a broke-dick dog.”

“Nichols, you kill Danby without giving him a clear call and I’ll see you hang for it. I won’t tolerate a range war.”

“That’s what you’ll have on your hands if Danby keeps stampeding my thirsty cattle. I’ve got more than enough men to see this thing through no matter how bloody it gets. I’ll hire more out of El Paso and Santa Fe if I have to. I’ve been a patient man, Marshal. But patience has its limits.”

“I’m not going to get into a pissing match with you, Nichols. You let the law handle this problem. That’s all.”

“Marshal—”

“You’re not talking about defending yourself, Nichols. You’re talking up murder.”

We traded stares. “I’m not one to buck the law,” he relented, “but I thought you’d better know where I stand. Far as I’m concerned I’ve done my civic duty. If the law in this valley won’t do anything about Danby, I will.”

“Okay, Nichols, we’ve warned each other. You remember I’ve got the law on my side. All you have is your pride.” I was about to leave when I realized I had an opportunity here. “Now that you’ve made me late for supper,” I said, “I have something to ask since you’re a member of the peace commission. I’m searching for a man by the name of Connie Rand. He hired out to your place.”

“Rand?”

“That’s right. Conrad Rand. People call him Connie. Tall jasper with blond hair. Forties, got a drooping eyelid.”

“He hasn’t worked for my outfit in more than a month,” Nichols said. “Leastways, not that I know of. I can ask my ramrod about it. He knows the crew better than I do.”

“I’d appreciate your help. Rand is wanted for questioning in the death of Shiner Larsen.”

“Yeah, I heard that crazy old coot got himself killed. Well, like I said, I don’t mind helping the law so long as they back my play. Good day to you, Marshal.”

Nichols started to go, stopped. He faced around, a sharp gleam sparking his eye. He didn’t want to leave on amicable terms—that might be considered a reconciliation. He wanted one more dig at me.

“Just so you know, Marshal, I have talked to people in town. Seems you’ve made an impression with everyone already.” An oily smirk whipsawed across his face.

“What are you driving at, Nichols?”

“Between you and me, Marshal, are you really rutting that half-breed on the side? And her father hardly cold in the ground yet.”

The coyotes howled at the starry night. It was a cold and lonely sound.

“You’re on a tight rein already, Nichols. Don’t strangle yourself with the little slack you have left.”

“Might touchy, aren’t you, Marshal? Don’t get riled. Unless I miss my guess she’s like any other woman of her kind. You flash enough money under her nose, she’ll spread for anyone.”

I took one step forward. “I won’t say this again, Nichols. Get out of my way before I take you apart.”

“Have it your way, Marshal.” His eyes and hands remained steady. “You must know next time we cross words I might not be so amenable. I’m not green, sir. Someday I may have to draw on you and take you down a notch.”

“Then that’s the day you’d better dig your grave first, Nichols.”

He laughed, stepped off the sidewalk and ambled down the centre of Front Street, whistling a tuneless song. I watched him mount the stairs to Doc Toland’s second-floor office and close the door behind him.

To hell with him. I continued on my way to a restaurant on Avenida de Haxan and found Magra Snowberry waiting.

“Hello, John.”

“Magra. Sorry I’m late.” My, but it was good to see her again.

A waiter came by with a chalkboard listing the night’s menu. I ordered a beefsteak, fried potatoes, and stewed corn. Magra ordered grilled
pollo
and beans.

As the food came her dark eyes searched my face. “You look angry about something.”

We hadn’t known each other long but she already knew my moods better than most.

I used a silver spoon to ladle mustard from a china boat. “I ran into Pate Nichols on the way. He and Coffer Danby almost killed each other in the Texas Star last night.”

I reached across the table and pressed my hand against hers. Her square, brown hand was soft. “But I don’t want to talk about them, Magra. I had a long day and it was a hot ride to Fort Providence. I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

After coffee I lighted my pipe and we sat and talked. She was pretty under the glimmering lamplight. Her long black hair was brushed and she wore stiff, yellow calico. I had the idea she had dressed this way special for me, but I couldn’t prove it.

“I like your dress,” I said, fishing.

“It’s two years old. I only wear it when I come to stay in town. I can near pass for white when I’m wearing this instead of buckskin and moccasins.”

“I see.” I frowned. “Magra, you shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are.”

“Oh, I’m not, but why make things harder than they already are?” She put down her coffee cup. “John, I’ve made a decision about my future.”

I cleaned out my pipe. “Okay. Let’s hear it.”

“I’m going to sell Papa’s land and use the money to buy a new mail-order dress. Then I’m going to serve drinks in the Quarter Moon.”

I leaned back in my chair and gave her a long stare.

“That’s a big decision, Magra.”

“August Wicker, he owns the Quarter Moon. He came to see me while you were in Fort Providence. He said I could earn a lot of money.”

“I’m sure he did.” She wasn’t naive. She knew what the job meant.

“I have to do something, John. Or it’s back to Fort Sumner and the reservation.”

“Your father wouldn’t like this, either, Magra.”

“Papa is dead. I have to live.”

“I know he’s dead. You keep forgetting I’m the one who found him.”

She covered my hand with both of hers. “John, you’ve done enough for me already. Anyway, people are talking and it’s going to hurt your reputation and maybe cost you your job.”

I remembered how Nichols had smirked and how I wanted to hit him, and keep hitting him, until his face was webbed with blood and the knuckles in my hand were all broken.

“I’m not interested in protecting my reputation if this is the trade I have to make,” I told Magra. I gave her a meaningful glance. She knew more about me than anyone in Haxan. More, maybe, than I knew myself, given who her father was.

Her father had believed a man would come to Haxan because it was the centre of things, and a man like me had to be here, in one way or another.

“Magra, your father was a very special man. He was able to see things others couldn’t, and it cost him his life. He also saw something in me, and I think he saw something special inside you, too. He had that kind of deep vision.”

I waited as the waiter refilled our coffee cups before I continued.

“I told you about my past, Magra, what there is I can remember.” I took a contemplative sip of the coffee. “I don’t know if those memories are real, or if I pretend they exist so I won’t go mad. I’m know I’m sent places, and times, where someone like me is needed. I was sent to Haxan and it’s here I must work.”

I finished low, “And in this long, dry war, in this never-ending sea of blood and dust and wind, I found someone I can trust.”

I held her eyes with mine. Her lips were slightly parted.

“Maybe someone I can love.”

She didn’t speak. She just stared at the checkered tablecloth, her long hair falling on either side of her face.

“I want you to wait on this Quarter Moon business,” I said firmly. “Let’s see what happens after I catch the men who killed your father. Then we’ll talk more about it. Please?”

She raised her eyes. “Will you walk me back to the hotel?”

“Be proud.”

It continued to irk me she couldn’t sleep in one of the main rooms. At least Hew Clay had changed out her straw pallet for a worn army cot. But she was still sleeping in a storeroom behind the kitchen. Where the house cat slept.

We strolled outside, her arm linked through mine. It was a fine night. There were many people on the street. The last stage had arrived and the La Posta station master was unloading luggage and mail sacks.

“Trouble out there, Steve?” I asked the teamster.

He shook his head. “Weren’t carrying a strongbox so this was a milk run, Marshal. Those coyotes made the horses nervy, though. Never heard such racket.”

The yips and yowls were a never-ending chorus. It sounded like Haxan was surrounded.

“There they go again,” Magra said. “It’s lucky you didn’t run into them on your way to Fort Providence, John.”

“I didn’t scare up anything but a covey of quail.”

The howls sounded like they were circling Haxan in an ever-moving ring, closing in. It gave you the crawlies.

Without thinking, I rested my hand on my gun.

It was then the howling stopped, and an uneasy silence filled the night air.

T
he next morning Jake and I rode out to Coffer Danby’s place. He lived west of Cottonwood Butte where the banks of Gila Creek were covered with bluestem grass. The shallow water sparkled clean and clear over round, mossy stones. North of him was Nichols’s ranch, a huge sprawling empire of five thousand head that swallowed a quarter of Sangre County. Both places were out a ways and it took us most of the morning to saddle.

A thin wisp of white breakfast smoke rose from the pipe chimney of Danby’s house. Jake and I dismounted. I knocked on the cabin door.

Rose Danby answered it.

The talk hardly did her justice. She was one of those striking women who carry her beauty like a knife; if they’re not careful, they can cut themselves with it.

“Good morning, ma’am. I’m Marshal Marwood out of Haxan. This is my deputy. I’m here to see your husband.”

She knocked back a curl of auburn hair with the back of an ivory hand. She was wearing a blue percale dress with a floral print and neatly trimmed lace collar.

“High time you rode out our way, Marshal,” she said, one fist on her hip. “Fine thing when people have to crawl on their bellies to the law for justice.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, don’t stand there. Come in, both of you. I’ve got biscuits and coffee is on the boil.”

“We don’t want to be a bother, Mrs. Danby.”

“No bother, Marshal. Coffer is camping in Shadow Bend. He would take it wrongful if I didn’t offer you men something to eat. We take pride in the hospitality of our home.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Danby.”

She pushed the door open and we stepped through, hats in hand. Rose seated us round a dining table. There were two children, an eight-year-old boy and a small five-year-old girl playing with wooden toys on the floor.

Rose shooed them outside. “You two scamps run along. We have grown up talk to settle. Jessie Anne, you feed those chickens or you’ll get the strap.”

“Yes, mama.” The kids left, slamming the door behind them.

Rose busied herself clinking saucers and pouring coffee. “Please, Marshal, you and your deputy make yourselves to home. Coffer will be back soon, I hope. We had a bad night. Some of our stock got killed again even though we posted guards.”

“How many, ma’am?” Jake asked.

“A wether and fourteen ewes.”

“Coyotes?” I asked.

She put a coffee cup down in front of me. “Since when do coyotes carry guns, Marshal?”

“You mean they were shot, Mrs. Danby?” Jake watched her put a platter of sourdough biscuits in the centre of the table. “Thanks, kindly, ma’am.”

“You’re welcome. Of course they were shot, and Pate Nichols shot them.”

“You have proof of that, Mrs. Danby?” I asked her.

That made her hesitate. “Not as such. Nothing a court would accept. But he hates my husband with a passion, that’s certain enough.” She clacked a bowl of fresh butter on the table. “No one else lives around here for miles. Who else could it be?”

“I have already talked with Mr. Nichols,” I told her. “He believes your husband is chasing cattle off from water.”

“Pate Nichols is a bald-faced liar and you can tell him I said that.” She poured herself a modest cup of coffee and sat opposite us.

“Coffer and me work very hard to make this place a home and a success,” she explained. “We mind our business. We don’t pry into what other people have going on. We’re certainly not fool enough to buck a rich cattleman like Pate Nichols for sport. He could crush this family with the change in his pocket.”

“Mrs. Danby, I’m trying to prevent a gunfight between those men. Believe me when I say I don’t want to see either of them hurt.”

“You think I want to see my man dead?” She scowled into her cup. “I appreciate what you’re trying to accomplish, Marshal, I do. Coffer isn’t much good with a handgun. He will admit that. But when a man is threatened, what can he do if he wants to remain a man?”

“Mrs. Danby, do you know what started this hate between the two of them?”

For the first time she avoided my eyes. She got up and busied herself stacking dirty breakfast dishes on the kitchen sideboard.

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” she said. “Do you and your deputy want more coffee?”

“Jake,” I said, “Mrs. Danby needs a bucket of well water for her kitchen.”

He said around a mouthful of biscuit, “I didn’t hear her say—”

“Take your time, Jake.”

He looked between Rose Danby and me. “Yes, sir.” He cast a longing look at the remaining plate of biscuits and went outside.

Rose Danby leaned against the sideboard. Her arms were folded under her breasts.

“You didn’t need to do that, Marshal,” she said. “I have got nothing to say to you even in private.”

“I hoped you would be more forthcoming if you only had one person to confide in, Mrs. Danby.”

“Well, you might be wrong about that, mightn’t you?”

“Mrs. Danby, look at me. How long have you been in love with Pate Nichols?”

“Since never.” She stacked one or two more dishes. “But he’s made his intentions known toward me and that’s all I’m going to say.”

“He mentioned this in front of your husband?”

“Not in so many words.” Her shoulders slumped. “Not like you say. But you know how it is out here. There aren’t many women and Nichols has a
lot
of money. He thinks he can buy anything he wants. I told him he can never buy me, and that’s the God’s truth.”

“Have you been seeing Pate Nichols?”

“That’s some more of your nosey business, Marshal.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Mrs. Danby. These men are out to kill one another and I’m sworn to uphold the law, such as it is in these wild parts. If you don’t want to see your husband shot down by Nichols, and your children fatherless, then I’m asking you to help me.”

She wouldn’t look at me. I pushed away from the table and stood in front of her.

“Rose,” I said, “if you do nothing it will be like you shot your husband yourself. You’d better think about that and get rid of your stubborn streak. I’m not the enemy. I want to help.”

“I . . . I will consider it, Marshal.” Her eyes were the colour of green bank moss in summer.

I went outside. Jake sat on the porch with a bucket of well water between his feet. The children were throwing seed corn to the chickens.

“Let’s go, Jake,” I said.

“Yes, sir.”

We rode to Shadow Bend. “Sorry about that back there, Jake,” I apologized. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I thought she would be more open if it was just me to talk to.”

“I figured it out after a while, Mr. Marwood. You pry anything out of her?”

“No, but I think Nichols might have asked her to marry him.”

“How do you know, sir?”

I remembered what he had said about Magra. “It’s how he thinks. A man like that uses his money like a stone club.”

Shadow Bend was a wrinkled depression where Gila Creek’s banks overflowed during the rainy season. There was a lot of good grass burned hay-yellow by the sun, and trees for shade if you wanted to try your luck fishing.

We spotted a large flock of sheep standing like white clouds on green baize in the distance. There were four riders on guard. One of them, a smallish man with a sun-tanned face, sat a dun gelding. He saw us and perked.

He drew a brass-framed Henry rifle and spurred his horse forward at a gallop. A black and white sheltie followed, bounding through the tall grass. The man whistled and the dog ran back to protect the flock.

He drew rein and lowered the rifle on us. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Marshal John Marwood. This is my deputy, Jake Strop. I take it you are Coffer Danby?”

“I am.”

“Mind booting that rifle before we talk, Danby?”

“Don’t know why I should.”

“Because I asked you to and I don’t like people pointing guns at me.”

He thought about it and shoved it back in its leather boot. “What are you doing on my property, Marshal?”

“I spoke to your wife this morning. She said you lost some stock last night.”

“That’s right. Pate Nichols killed them.”

“Anything else?”

“Fences cut,” he replied.

“Can I see them?”

“I guess there’s no harm in that.” We rode side-by-side along the eastern bank of Gila Creek and came upon the torn and mangled bodies of Danby’s stock.

“Coyotes got to chewing on them after they was shot,” Danby said. “Over there is where the fence was cut.”

I dismounted and stalked along the sharp-edged bank. There was a long patch of sticky mud. I found a lot of paw prints jumbled among a single horse track.

“This looks like the work of one man,” I said.

“Only takes one man to cut half a mile of wire if he has time,” Danby countered.

I looked at the three stone-faced men watching the flock. “I thought you worked this place alone, Danby.”

“I rode into Haxan a day or two ago and hired them.”

“Gunmen?”

“They know how to shoot.”

Danby crossed his hands over his saddle horn. “I’m not going to lose any more sheep, Marshal. I’ve buried my last ewe. Next time, I’ll bury Pate Nichols.”

“Danby, I’m here to warn you. If you and Pate Nichols start a range war I’m going to stop it. Anyway I can.”

“Not your place to tell me my business,” he snapped back. “I’ll protect what belongs to me. That’s the right of any man.”

A breeze rippled the top of the shallow creek water, breaking the sunlight into yellow, dancing lozenges.

“Does that include your wife, Danby?”

Coffer’s face turned purple. He sat rigid in his saddle. “What are you trying to insinuate, Marshal?” His voice sounded like he was strangling on his own anger.

“Only this. If you and Nichols start any gunplay I’ll see the other man hanged for it, no matter what the cause. I warned Nichols, and now I’m warning you.”

“I’ve got every lawful right to protect my property. That includes everything that belongs to me. Rose is my woman.”

I saddled up and collected my reins. “Danby, this trouble between you and Nichols isn’t about fences, or thirsty cattle. It’s a personal hurt raging out of control like a hay fire.”

“Marshal, you’ve said your piece. Now I’ll thank you to get the hell off my land. You show your face around here again I’ll like as not shoot you down, along with Pate Nichols.”

I walked my horse toward him and pulled up.

“Danby,” I said low, “the day you draw on me is the day your wife turns widow. That’s all. Let’s go, Jake.”

We swung our horses around and pulled for town.