Payback at Morning Peak (36 page)

“I can’t. I’m tied, Jube.”

Jubal took out his knife. In the dim light, he carefully ran his free hand up the saddle, then cut the ropes holding Cybil to the saddle horn. He helped her slide off the mount. She was trembling.

“Hold me tight, Jube.” She buried her face into his collar. “I was so afraid.” She finally took a long breath and sighed. “I think I’ll be all right. Get me out of here, please.”

“We’ll ease out the way I came in.”

As they started out of the stall, the mare tossed her
head, pawing the straw-covered earth. Jubal raised a finger to his mouth. “Someone’s coming.”

A muted, high-pitched voice struggled with a spiritual. The sound came from the direction of the house’s back porch and seemed to be getting closer. Cybil started toward the back of the barn.

“Wait,” Jubal said. “There isn’t time. Stay in the back of the stall behind the horse. Take this.” He handed his knife to her and tossed his hat onto the floor of the enclosure. “Give me your hair ribbon.”

Cybil took the wide, pale ribbon from her hair and handed it to him. Jubal mounted the horse as the singer came closer.

“Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)/That sav’d a wretch like me!…”

Jubal slumped down in the saddle after looping the ribbon with a large bow around his head and tying it under his chin. He coaxed the mare sideways so the light would catch the top of his bowed head, and waited.

Pete Wetherford unlatched the stable door.

“… I once was lost, but now am found, I Was blind, but now I see.”
Pete lingered before entering. “Are you ready for me, darlin’?”

The door bounced against the side of the barn and sprang back. Pete was silhouetted against the smoky sunset, the sky a muddy red band behind his head. Mustard-colored stripes melted into the vanished sun, burnishing the horizon in a soft orange.

“I have something for you, sweet lips.” He stepped into the barn. “Don’t be hanging your head, darling. Old
Pete will take care of you.” He took out a bowie knife. “I changed my mind, dumpling. I’m gonna let you fly back up La Paloma Street to Calle Piñon, and fall into the arms of that rotten man you call ‘Daddy’… how’s that, sweetness?”

When Jubal heard the door slam open his first impulse was to confront Pete head-on, but with the light being so dim, he decided to wait until the man moved closer. He could hear Cybil once again behind him, trying to muffle her sobbing. Jubal thought that might be good, at least it came from the right general direction. He kept his head down, praying that in the soft light Pete would see only a faint image of a figure on horseback.

“I done me a lot of terrible deeds today, sweetness.” Pete waited, as if trying to make a decision. “I can smell lilac water perfume coming off you, hon.… If you ask me gentle-like, I’d be pleased to carry you up to the second-floor room my friend Willy D. gave us and perform a wedding ceremony with you. Course, it wouldn’t include a preacher, but it would be the start of a new life for you… you can trust me on that.” He hummed the spiritual again, but didn’t move.

The barn door suddenly slammed shut. “Whoo-ee. That scared the snot out of me.” He laughed and resumed his humming. “I was letting the beast out today. You and me could start a family, sweetness. You know how that goes, don’t you? You lie in bed all coy and innocent…”

Cybil’s sobbing grew louder. Jubal strained to see across the darkening stable floor.

“Don’t worry, missy. Like I said, I’m gonna turn you
loose. You believe in fate and all that? You don’t have to answer, I can hear your misery. Old Pete had the scare of his life today, want to hear ‘bout it? I’m sure anything regarding my pain you’d want to listen to, right?”

Cybil continued her crying.

“I take that as a yes. I was in the jail talking to my former boss, who was unaware of his approaching death. When out of the past comes this voice of a fellow who has been dead for at least a month.… Yeah, big as life comes this countrified sound. You want to hear this story, don’t you?” He interpreted Cybil’s weeping as assent. “Reason I know he was dead was, I put him in that particular way.” He stopped to listen to Cybil for a while. “Still interested in this, sweetness?”

When she didn’t answer, he continued. “Anyhow, this voice at the jail got me all jiggled up. Pete has scared feelings sometimes too. Wouldn’t say that to just anyone.” He kicked the loose straw on the stable floor. “You said some hurtful words to me, darlin’.” He tried to slough it off, his confession to her. “I can only think that maybe I’ve done enough disruption for one day. Strange thing, when I heard this Ed Thompson, it reminded me of an old fellow I had to string up on the side of a barn. I won’t put you to sleep with all that story nonsense, but that farmer didn’t beg for his life like Ed did, just called me every name in God’s blue skies. It were funny as all hell. He were a tough old bastard.” He stood waiting. He was hard-pressed to know for what… a sign, a word.

The silence in the stable finally broke when he continued his humming, then moved toward the old mare.

A voice that was definitely not the girl’s startled him.

“That’s far enough, Wetherford.”

He stopped in the center of the stable floor, the last of the evening light casting the shape of a cross, creating a soft double band across his chest. Jubal cocked his weapon and rested it on the top of the saddle horn.

“If you move, I’ll kill you. So don’t tempt me.” When Wetherford mentioned Jubal’s father and the way he had died, it was all he could do to keep from killing the man right there, but unprovoked, he knew it would be a mistake that he couldn’t live with. Jubal could tell that regardless what Wetherford was saying, Jubal was still undecided about what he was going to do. But there was one certainty. He couldn’t live with Cybil’s disapproval. He had to be careful. The words “it was funny as all hell” echoed in his head.

Wetherford snorted hard, bending over to rest his hands on his knees, in spite of Jubal’s threat. “It’s the”—he paused—“the sodbuster. Well, damn all. If this isn’t the funniest thing. Where’s the slut, farmer boy?”

“Just pay close attention to what I’m saying, Pete. If you doubt that I’ll kill you, make a quick move and see.”

Jubal had no sooner spoken than Pete made a darting, childlike move to his left, then back the other way. He giggled and squatted down, spun in place several times, and ended up with both hands clasped tightly around his groin. Through his merriment he hissed to Jubal.

“I moved a-plenty and you didn’t fire. Wonder why. Remember what I told you when I was laying all beat up on the mountain? I said I’d do you. You’re a coward, boy. You’re afraid to pull that trigger ‘cause you was raised up to do the right thing. You’re not gonna shoot me because
you don’t have the eggs, señor. The
huevos.
Stones. You’re a mama’s boy. By the way, she had nice teats, your mom.” He reached quickly under his coat, making a gunfighter’s move, laughing hysterically.

Jubal fired twice, the first round catching Pete in the stomach, the second a little higher in the center of his chest.

Revenge.

Jubal swung his right leg over the saddle horn and slid easily onto the ground, brushing Cybil’s ribbon from his head. He never took his eyes from the stretched-out form on the stable floor. He could hear only soft gurgling sounds, and then nothing. Jubal approached cautiously, bent on one knee, and ran his hand along Wetherford’s belt for a weapon. It wasn’t there. Wetherford was not armed.

Jubal heard voices coming from the back of the house.

“Who’s out there? What’s going on?”

“It’s all over!” Jubal shouted. “Give me a minute.” He stood over the body and felt no remorse, only vindication. He wondered if the folks outside had been Pete Wetherford’s friends. If so, would they consider Jubal’s act self-defense if Wetherford was unarmed?

Jubal walked back to the mare. In the saddlebag, he found Pete’s Colt revolver. He checked the chamber and found it full. He tossed it on the ground next to Pete’s body, then took a quick look out back for Cybil, who he thought would be at least halfway home by now.

Jubal walked to the double stable doors and pushed them open. A crowd of men and scantily clad women,
several with lanterns, stood in a semicircle staring at the building.

“Pete Wetherford is inside, he pulled down on me. It wasn’t of my choosing.”

He led Frisk back through the woods to La Paloma Street, finally coming to the path trailing behind the Wickhams’ house. A pale light from the kitchen illuminated the back garden area. A shadow moved across the curtained view. A figure appeared at the door.

“Who’s there?” Judge Wickham opened the door only partially.

“It’s Jubal, sir.”

“Come in, youngster. Lord God almighty. Are you all right?”

“Yes, sir, and yourself?”

“We’ll manage. Come in, come in. We’re sitting around the table trying to make sense of this night.”

Jubal appeared in the doorway of the dining room and Cybil walked shakily into his arms. As they embraced, Jubal looked over her shoulder and spoke to Mrs. Wickham.

“How are you doing, ma’am?”

She cocked her head slightly at Jubal. “Let’s just say I’ve had better days.”

Judge Wickham pulled out a chair for Jubal and offered tea. The atmosphere at the table was heavy with relief.

“We, as a family, wish to thank you, young man, for the splendid job you did retrieving Cybil from that renegade bastard—”

“Hiram, please. Your language.” Mrs. Wickham flicked
her teaspoon in the air, gesturing toward Jubal. “What were you thinking, young man? To bring your family’s story into this household… you nearly got all of us killed.”

“Marlene, that’s not fair. Jubal didn’t instigate this debacle, far from it. He’s as much a victim in this situation as we are.”

She bolted from her chair. “I won’t have it, do you hear? I won’t have him in this house. My God, Hiram. He’s just killed a man.”

The table went silent, and Jubal rose. “Excuse me.” He made his way out the back door to the sound of the judge and his wife shouting at each other. By the time he’d reached the alley, Cybil was right behind him.

“Jube, please wait. I apologize for my mother. She’s completely wrong. She’s simply trying to sort out her fear and this horrible night. Please, Jube. Stop, don’t run away, please.”

Jubal paused next to Frisk. He fooled with her bridle, self-consciously adjusting the buckles.

“How did your mother know that I shot Wetherford?”

Cybil placed both of her hands on Jubal’s shoulders. “Because I told them.”

“But you were gone by the time I shot him.”

“I ran into the woods, then stopped when I heard gunfire. I don’t know what I would have done if you had been shot, so I went back.” She paused and wept. “I couldn’t see very well, but I stood by the open slat until I heard you call out to the people behind the house.”

Jubal wondered if she had seen him take Pete’s pistol out of the saddlebag.

He thought maybe he would never know.

Jubal wondered if he had accomplished what he’d set out to do. Were things better in his small world? He had to admit to himself that the revenge he’d promised was unfulfilling. He was afraid a hollowness about it all would haunt him.

He didn’t much like who he had become. Would his old friend, the Count, have had those same feelings? What were those words that Pete kept singing?

“I once was lost, but now I’m found. Was blind, but now I see.”

Al Wetherford had the dubious distinction of being the only one of the Tauson gang who stood trial. His days were short-lived.

The Ute Crook Arm was found dead behind the land office, his Día de los Muertos mask still in place. It seemed he’d grown fond of setting the fires and was in the process of igniting several stores when Marshal Wayne Turner not so bravely shot him in the back.

Cybil left for Boston, but not before she and Jubal filled their time together with promises of being reunited.

Frisk carried Jubal east toward Morning Peak and the farm. The cottonwoods and aspens, in full color, had weathered the long summer. Grayish yellow clouds crowded the eastern skies. Raindrops the size of small marbles pelted the rutted path.

Jubal stopped under a cottonwood by the stream and
watched the storm create small dust devils, then smother them with God’s tears.

He guided Frisk up through the trees just north of the burnt homestead, where the family was buried. The small makeshift cross was on its side. Jubal adjusted it and took a moment for his family, then walked Frisk farther up into the pines. The heavy clouds released a torrent of rain through the native grasses, washing dust from the rocks that littered the ground. He looked for nearly an hour for the grave of Tauson’s wife, thinking perhaps he would give her a proper marker. On the way back down, he noticed Frisk had stepped on a broken rock. A blue-green stone, revealed, like a lump of dull glass with sky-blue tint. Jubal dismounted, took the piece, and rubbed it hard against his saddle blanket, seeing a luster coming through flaky dust. Then he noticed an eroded slope nearby was alive with gray-green and sky-blue rocks. He knew what they were, his mother’s petite brooch having the same type of embedded stones. She had prized it, because it had been a gift from Jubal’s father in Kansas on their wedding day.