Here by the Bloods (2 page)

A drunken voice yells out, “Send the halfbreed in after 'em, Sheriff. No sense in gettin' you'self kilt.” I want to turn around, but do not.

Elbert Pooley's wagon lies jackknifed in the middle of the road. His two mules, spooked by the explosion, strain and whinny against the reins, dragging the wagon in a slow-moving arc. Elbert is down with the mules, holding the bridle of one and trying to grab the other. “Take cover, Elbert. Leave them mules be,” I say to him.

“Their legs will snap!” Elbert pleads, trying not to cry. I take the bridle of the bucking mule and calm her.

“Cut 'em free then.” I know by Sheriff's tone that this is meant for me and I start pulling at the leather. Elbert stops dithering and gets busy on the other mule. Sheriff takes a knee behind the overturned wagon and peers around at the bank door directly in front of him. I get my mule free, slap her hindquarter, then set about helping Elbert, who is making a mess of it.

“This one here,” I say, unfastening the proper line. The mule pulls free and I put Elbert's hand up to her bridle.

“God bless you, son. God bless, you!” Elbert says, leading one mule off with him to chase after the other.

I glance over at the bank, squat down behind Sheriff. “Two geldings hitched up out front.”

“And neither one spooked,” Sheriff says. “I suspect they have seen this before.”

“Not much cover here with this wagon.”

“No, but it will have to do.” Sheriff turns his head toward me, but not all the way, keeping one eye on the door. “You best go on. Get over to the post office. Tell Bertram to wire the governor's office. Tell him to send marshals. Then go fetch Doc. We are going to need him for sure.” Sheriff sees that I do not want to leave him so he says, “I will be all right, Harlan. Now go on.”

I stay crouched and run off down the alley opposite the Loan and Trust. At the end of the building I turn left and flank Main Street from the alley behind the chemist's. I enter the post office through the back door, all the while hoping I do not hear a gunshot, or worse, a scream. I arrive at the front of the post office but find no one behind the counter. “Anybody here?” I ask.

“We're down on the dang floor and I suggest you do the same.” The voice of Bertram Merriman, the postmaster, sounds far away. I turn toward the window and see Jasper Goodhope on all fours behind the writing desk, still clutching the letters he came in to post. Through the window I have a clear view of Loan and Trust. The upturned wagon is off to the left and I can just see the edge of Sheriff's boot behind it.

“Who is it?” Jasper asks. “Is it the Snowman, you reckon?”

“Don't know.” I crouch down to where the glass meets wood. All at once a man kicks up a horse and a second later that same bandit who followed the safe outside comes barreling around from the back of the bank on a palomino he must have had tied up there. Clever thieves. Keep the horses spread out. He is at full gallop when he hits the street. He cuts hard to the left, rushing away from the sheriff. The bandit fires his Colt three times, hitting the wagon twice. He holds the booty in his rein hand. A fine rider. Even better with the gun. Sheriff rises and fires off two shots from his Spencer, but the palomino knows what guns mean and has her rider a hundred yards off before Sheriff can get a bead on him.

I see the door of the Loan and Trust swing open, revealing darkness inside and little else. Sheriff swings the Spencer around toward the door. “You come out slow with your hands where I can see them.” Sheriff's voice echoes through the window. Then silence. I hear Jasper Goodhope's heart pounding beneath his clothes. Sheriff rises a little, which I do not like. But he might see something I cannot.

The dark interior of the bank holds no clue, until a muzzle flash barks out from it, biting an apple-size chunk from the wagon's flank. Sheriff falls to his side, hit, but not dead. He regains the Spencer, leans around the side of the wagon, pounds a half dozen rounds into the dark void and through the walls. The Spencer clicks empty and he grabs his right-side Colt. From the darkness comes a single shot that pierces the wagon like it was not there. Sheriff slumps.

Two men charge out of the bank. The barefaced man fires deliberately toward the saloon, discouraging any vigilante sniping. The one covered in blue leaps from the railing and lands in the saddle of his gelding before positioning his compatriot's horse for a similar mount. He calls out to the town, but I swear his eyes fall on me. “Anyone riding after us gets the same.” Then he kicks up the gelding and they are gone.

I am already halfway to Sheriff. I turn him over—his green eyes seem to look
through
me. But then they focus, finding me, recognizing me.

Sheriff touches my face for only the second time in my life. “It was the Snowman. I seen him with my own eyes. Snowman, sure as day.” He tries to say something else, then stops, exhausted.

“We will get you to Doc's. I swear it.” I watch the blood drain from his face. He starts to look through me again, all the way to heaven. I try to lock eyes with him, but I cannot see his face through all the damn water.

The last of the mourners disappears down the hill trail heading back to town. My Sunday shirt is soaked from shoveling. I take a seat beneath the shade of the big pinyon pine and steal my first smoke of the day. Even with three of us laying into our spades, it took a quarter hour to fill in the berm of fresh earth that holds the sheriff.

The widow was laid to rest earlier this morning, in the churchyard. Padre spoke a good piece beforehand, carrying on about damnation for the offenders and the broken morality of the West. He had to lump his lamentations for Sheriff and widow Daubman into a single go because he knows most rightly that assembling the citizenry of the Bend twice in one day, even if the second time is for their beloved sheriff, is beyond the miracles of the Almighty.

From the churchyard the townsfolk followed the wagon carrying Sheriff's casket—a handsome, cherrywood design donated with respectful condolences from the mortuary in Heavendale—in a slow-moving processional down Main Street and up the half-mile trail to Sheriff's final resting place. The heat stirred a few sighs of vexation, which stern eyes quickly silenced.

All of Caliche Bend had come to honor its fallen lawman. All except Frank Wallace, who remains bedridden on Doc's orders, and Mrs. Wallace, who must be half-deaf herself the way poor Frank shouts everything now. Frank Wallace has come along in the two days since the Snowfall, when the search party, headed by me, found him mumbling nonsense in Big Jack Early's cornfield an hour after dusk. My nose led the way, the smell of charred flesh and urine-drenched wool lighting him up like a beacon.

Frank Wallace is lucky. Whatever shard of metal dismembered him was hot enough to cauterize what it left behind. Otherwise he would have bled out and the smell that drew me to him would have been the same one that attracts the vultures.

Doc worked on him through the night while the padre convened a vigil of the widows that prayed and wailed by candlelight until dawn. When Frank Wallace opened his eyes just before noon the next day, he was, save for his damaged hearing, in remarkable possession of his faculties—so much so that two hours later he was able to holler out his account of the robbery from his bed.

At the mayor's insistence, a man from Western Union was brought in to serve as scribe, scribbling down every word. I and a dozen other folks gathered outside Frank's window to hear the account, while Mayor Boone stood bedside, nodding solemnly at the appropriate junctures. When Frank Wallace, hoarse and weak of body, finally concluded his narrative, Boone anointed himself official witness by certifying the written record with his signature.

“Well done, Frank. They will hang by this, for certain,” Walter Boone said, collecting the ream of parchment the moment the ink had dried.

Tending to personal matters in Santa Fe at the time of the murders, Boone had received the news by telegram at his hotel and returned on the first train. He had not yet been home when he strode out of Frank Wallace's house carrying the pages in his valise. The sight of his steamer trunk aboard the wagon, hastily packed no doubt, confirmed his direct arrival from the depot.

 

 

The fine headstone, spared the vicious glare of an unfettered sun by the broad branches of the pinyon, sends its gentle warmth through my waistcoat as I lean against it. I know it is the warmth of Sheriff and of Mrs. Pardell next to him, beneath a fathom of New Mexico dirt. My finger drifts languidly over the stonecutter's work. The Pardell name I have seen enough times to know the letters. But the latest amendment, D-A-V-I-D, chiseled this very morning, marks what can only be Sheriff's Christian name, while the fresh numbers recall a life that began some fifty years ago and ended, by a lone slug from a murderer's forty-four, in 1-8-8-7.

“If I go before my dear Catherine, be sure I am buried here.” Sheriff said those words to me after the huge Mexican bighorn gave the place to us. I'd spotted the big male among the ewes, stone still, nearly invisible against the ashy rock slope. His eyes had me in his stare. I nodded just the slightest to tell Sheriff I had something.

“I don't see him,” Sheriff whispered.

“He's there,” I said, even softer. “Just below that gray boulder.” A half minute passed before Sheriff let out a small breath that told me he saw the ram too.

Sheriff brought up the Spencer and fired. The ram buckled, then recovered and skipped off. The ewes scattered. With Sheriff clamoring behind me, I tracked the ram for an hour, following the scant blood drops and faint click of his hooves over the rocks until the animal could run no more. He knelt down and waited for us. When we found him he was still breathing, his eyes open and at peace. This was a few yards from where Sheriff now lies. The big ram wanted us to have this place—we had earned it. He stayed alive long enough to make sure we understood.

I thanked him and with my knife passed him on without suffering. I joined Sheriff at the edge of the overlook. “My God,” Sheriff said. “What a view.”

As I stare out at it now, the panorama of the landscape appears much as it did on that day three years ago when we discovered it. The whole of the valley stretches in both directions to the horizon. To the south, the white houses and fertile fields of Agua Verde hug the banks of the river. The snaking, emerald water holds its hue even in the full glare of the sun. Clear air makes the town appear much closer than its true distance of twelve miles, but to anyone in Caliche Bend, the bloom of prosperous green that is Agua Verde lies across a dusty, inhospitable ocean of busted claims and broken dreams.

Our neighbors to the north seem equally unreachable. The town of Heavendale, with its mines running rich with copper and turquoise, shimmers regally from its perch atop the foothills of the valley's northward rising edge. Eight hardscrabble miles of high desert separate it from the Bend, which, after crossing, greet the weary traveler with a sign that reads:
Heavendale—Closer to God
.

The Sangre de Cristo range rises like a spine to the west, straight across from me, bridging the whole of the valley and pinning those who live in it behind an impenetrable wall of cragged peaks, perilous ravines, and general misery. The Sangres swallow a man whole. They can wilt the heartiest frontiersman or freeze an entire mule train in its tracks. Billy goats starve in the stingy landscape while the punishing winds have been known to grind adobe huts into dust. Even the strongest Navajo hunters stay away from all but the lowest ridges—and even then, they venture into the Sangres only for a guarantee of a big reward, perhaps to finish off a wounded elk that could feed a village for a week. The Sangres were not put here to be crossed. They are here to be respected.

The valley thrives at its extremities, protects its flanks, and in its barren and forgettable crotch, offers up the Bend. I tune my ears to the sounds of its discontent. I can almost hear the arguments brewing at the meeting hall, where this minute strident voices debate the proper course of action. It is a circus of frustration I will step into soon enough. But for now, my eyes fix on the Sangres.

A wildfire, when it happens, coats the sky for miles in a billowy, ashen cloud. And a controlled brush burn or the clearing of timber leaves a choking thumb smudge of black. But the thin gray string of vapor rising from the pass directly across from me now indicates none of those things. From the Bend I would not see this spindly column of smoke at all. Only here in the foothills—blessed by the sharp eyes the Spirits gave me—am I of sufficient altitude to detect it. Perhaps Sheriff guides me still, or through him, the bighorn. But the meaning of the smoke is clear—a mile or two into the Sangres, in a pass the Navajo call the Gulch of No Place, a campfire burns.

I pull hard on the last of my cigarette and stub it out on the ground. Then I steel myself for the long walk back to town. There will be no sleep for me tonight.

“It was a fine wagon I lost,” Elbert Pooley yells, rising from his chair. “Some fifty dollar! And now a barn full of hay with no way to move it.”

“Fifty dollars?” Polly McPhee's lip trembles as if the sum were a personal affront. She clenches the overworked handkerchief in her fingers. “Everything we had was in that bank. What are you going to do about it, Mr. Farley?”

The air of the meetinghouse hangs thick with lamp-oil smoke and rancor. I slip in unnoticed and ease against the back wall. Thirty pairs of eyes fall on Amos Farley and await his answer. A small, plump man unaccustomed to sweat or scrutiny, Farley dabs at his beaded forehead and looks to the mayor for assistance. Finding none, he says in a weak voice, “Most of you had funds with us. The Loan and Trust will do all we can, as well as provide for the needs of Frank Wallace, who so bravely stood up to these barbarians. I have wired the safe company in Chicago, demanding restitution. No response yet, but I assure you I will be most vigilant.”

“I lost everything, Amos,” Big Jack Early says. “How much you expect to get out of them fellas in Chicago?”

Farley blots his brow again. His voice goes even softer, if that is possible. “Well, typically, in these situations, if the company finds a claim to be valid, they have been known to pay as much as . . . ten cents on the dollar.” A wave of indignant gasps, followed by irate cries repeating the paltry amount, erupt from the crowd.

“Fifteen!” Farley offers, “in certain circumstances.”

“We'll take the rest out of your end, Farley. Your land is worth plenty!” Otis Chandler yells, to a chorus of approval.

“Order! Order!” Mayor Boone shouts, gaveling the mallet upon the heavy oak table where he sits at the front of the room with the other members of the council. “I will remind all of you that the bandits have not robbed us of our common decency nor our Christian brotherhood toward our fellow man. We are all victims here.”

“The town is broke, Mayor. Broke!” Jasper Goodhope says. “And with the mines run dry, there is not a family in here that can hold out more than a month or two.”

“What we need is our money back,” Bertram Merriman says, “before those bandits gamble and whore it away.”

“Or worse, vanish into Mexico with it,” a woman's voice rings out.

“We need the Texas Rangers, is what,” says Doc, rapping his knuckle on the council's table for emphasis. “This is their job.”

“The Rangers do not work on charity, mind you,” says Bennett Whitlock, the rancher. “I hired them once, to track down rustlers. I found them petty and most irritating. Paid them two thousand and they never did find my cattle. In a matter such as this—considering the Rangers' commission and the stiff cut Texas would demand for the loan of them, we might be better off holding out for Farley's Chicago deal.”

“Might I remind you there is a ten-thousand-dollar bounty on LaForge's head? Let the Rangers have a piece of that,” Jasper Goodhope says.

“You think they would risk their necks to go against a killer like the Snowman and then cotton to sharing the reward with the likes of us? You, sir, have not dealt with the Texas Rangers.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Mayor,” Hezekiah Fay, the tailor, says from the council table, “you could persuade the governor to increase the bounty. Certainly recent developments warrant such an action.”

“Hezekiah Fay is right,” Bertram shouts. “These bandits are a scourge upon the land.”

“Hear, hear!”

“I am more than willing to solicit the help of the governor and I have no doubt His Excellency would provide whatever resources are available. But as to the question of the Texas Rangers, we must not forget the reality. It is a three-day ride from Amarillo. By the time the Rangers get here, the Snowman's gang and our money will be scattered to the wind.”

“Then forget them Rangers,” Big Jack growls. “I say we form up a posse.”

“Hear, hear!” agrees Merle. Then everybody gets to yelling again, some in agreement, some just to yell.

“I will ride with you, Jack!” Elbert says.

Boone comes down with the gavel again, “And just where do you think you will go riding off to, Elbert?” The question puzzles Elbert. “Yes, it would do our names proud to be the town that brought in the Snowman. Hell! We would all reap the benefits. But without some indication of where we might apprehend this gang, the efforts of a search party would be as bountiful as an orchard of tumbleweed.”

“I know where they are.” The starchy rustle of wool crunches the air as spines twist to face me. I clear my throat a bit, these being the first words I have spoken aloud in almost two days. Had no reason to do so till now. “In the Sangres, about a mile in. Seen their fire. If I was hiding out, that is where I would do it. Figure their best chance of crossing the range is to wait until just before dawn. That gives us tonight to track them down. Wait longer than that, we take our chances up in the Bloods same as they do. I figure ten, twelve able-bodied men would do the trick.” My words hang in the air, just floating there. It is the mayor who breaks the silence.

“Uh, thank you, Harlan.” Boone has that tone he always has when he speaks to me, like he is speaking to a child, but a child who makes him uneasy. He turns partly toward the council without looking at them, keeping an eye in my direction. “It is suggested before the council that Harlan Two-Trees lead a team of volunteers into the Sangre de Cristo range this very evening in an attempt to ambush the Snowman's gang and bring them back to town to stand trial.”

“I ain't staking my life on no half-breed!” yells a voice I recognize.

“Suicide!”

“You will stay respectful, gentlemen,” Boone grumbles. “The sheriff was a friend to many people.”

“The young fella here could track a coy-yote,” Big Jack says. “Hell, Harlan, I will ride with you. Who else?” A long silence follows as a roomful of eyes avoid Big Jack's gaze. “How 'bout it, Elbert?”

“I suppose I cannot stand by and let my whole savings vanish into the Bloods,” Elbert says. “You have me.” But his voice lacks the vigor of before.

“And how would your wife feel about that, Elbert? Or yours, Jack?” Boone asks. Doris Early touches her husband's shoulder, pleading.

“Do not do it, Jack. He will shoot you dead.” Jack deflates a bit. His eyes grow uncertain, as if remembering the accuracy of the shot that killed Sheriff, or the brutality that dispatched the widow. Elbert lets his gaze drift down to the floor.

“Your bravery is commendable, all of you,” the mayor says. “But this town does not long for more widows. This is a job for professional lawmen, not farriers and farmers—no disrespect, gentleman. I am not itching to get shot either.”

“Professionals? Wait! The Pinkertons have an office in Agua Verde,” Doc shouts, practically bursting.

“And one in Heavendale. A fine idea, Doc,” says Hezekiah Fay. A murmur of agreement swells through the room.

“We can inquire of the Pinkertons, of course. They too, will not come cheaply . . .” Those are the last words I hear as the voices from the meetinghouse fade in the distance. The night gets no younger as I walk on alone. I fix up at the moonless sky, another gift from the bighorn.