Payback at Morning Peak (8 page)

Fascinated, the deputy took a hard stare at Jubal, then leaned back. “Doc did whatever he could, then called Father McBride, who happened to be having supper at the hotel. The long and short of it, Sheriff, is that this here snip of a kid you’re talking to went on a killing spree.”

Morton rocked in his chair. “That’s what I’m finding out. This youngster says he killed ole Petey Wetherford and some Mexican up toward Morning Peak.”

“Hell, no. Petey? Sheriff, that ain’t the half of it. This yehoo kilt his whole damn family.”

“I didn’t kill my family. The men here in town who had a run-in with my pa did it. Out of revenge ‘cause my pa had a disagreement with this fellow Billy Tauson—”

“Hell’s fire, you admitted you shot that Ty—”

“When the good Father were giving that ole boy his last rites, I heard him going on about the family deaths, and when the priest asked him who killed the family he said in a rattly voice, ‘the son,’ and just kept mumbling it over and over. ‘The son, the son.’ Damn, it were kind of scary. Why would the son do something like that? Lordy.”

“He wasn’t saying I did it,” Jubal blurted. “He was saying
Tau
son.
Tau-son.
Billy
Tau
son. When I came down off the mountain they were all dead.” Jubal stopped.
They weren’t all dead, were they, Jube?
He knew if he spoke the absolute truth these yokels wouldn’t understand him.

The slow, pendulumlike movement of his father swinging in the barn splashed before him.

The sheriff put his feet on the desk. “Ron, I think we
got us a real desperado on our hands. Show our Mr. Young one of our accommodations in back, would you, please? We’ll have Judge Wickham look into this in the morning.”

Jubal felt as if the sheriff and deputy were having sport with him. Not really believing him, yet maybe wanting to hear his complicated story out of sheer boredom. It had been a mistake to bring the now-departed Ty Blake into this miserable town. But it was either that or leave him to the animals, and he knew he couldn’t do that. “Sir, please, if you would just listen. They were burning our farm. When I arrived back from the mountain the place was an inferno. M-my family were lying about, all near to dead,” he stammered. “Or, soon to be,” he said, mostly to himself.

The sheriff dropped his feet from the desk and towered over Jubal. “What you mean, ‘near to’? Were they all dead or what?”

“Yes, dammit, they’re all dead… now.” Jubal couldn’t look at the man as Deputy Ron took him by the arm and opened the heavy door separating the office from the four cells.

With a rude shove from the back, the deputy moved Jubal into one of the tiny cells and locked the steel-barred door. “Nighty-night, Storyboy.” He laughed as he slammed the solid wood door to the office.

Jubal heard the two men carrying on as if they’d just heard a great yarn. He slumped onto the hard steel cot.

“Hey, kiddo, you give a girl a smoke?”

Jubal was startled by a female voice with a thick accent.

“What’s your name, señor? I am Maria. I’ve been in this outhouse for two days. They try to say I cheated one of my customers. Is joke on them, señor. I cheat all my customers because I pretend I luff them.” She began to hum.

Jubal thought about what he had done to deserve this situation. “I’m sorry, miss. I don’t smoke. My father used to, from time to time.” Jubal had an image of his father grinning with a long thin cigar clamped between his teeth. “I tried it but it burned my throat. Sorry.”

He paced in the cell, not understanding how he had gotten himself into this situation. He finally slumped down on the bunk and buried his head in his hands.

“What’s your name, boy?” The woman hadn’t spoken for quite some time while Jubal contemplated his fate.

Named after his father, he wondered if a name truly mattered. Presently he was known as “Accused Killer,” which had a certain morbid catch to it. Or, to be more exact, “Murderer.” But what, after all, is really in a name? “I am Jubal, miss. Jubal Young. You’re Maria, correct?” He couldn’t see her because of the wall between them, but thought she might be a pleasant person from the sound of her voice.

“My name is Consuela Maria Adelita Gomez, so I just go by Maria. It’s more easy. So what’s you in for, Jubals?”

He paused. “Can’t really say. There was an incident at our place, our farm. It involved my family.”

“Ay, Cristo,
family, they are the death.”

How right she was. “The death.”

Neither said anything for a while. Then a soft Spanish voice, singing in broken English, filled the dark cell. “Oh, crazy moon, please take my troubled heart away. I sleep under a velvet sky, its clouds wrap my nightly stay. Better times, bet-ter times.
Tiempos mejores.”

After a while, Jubal heard Maria softly crying. He was at a loss to think of something to say, so he kept to his own, then drifted off to the soundest sleep he’d had in days.

“Get up outta there, cowboy. The judge wants to see you.”

Jubal’s new day started with Deputy Ron’s sour disposition. The door clanged open and Jubal, on shaky legs and with an aching side, wobbled out. He straightened his clothes and rubbed his morning face, taking care not to aggravate the gash on his forehead.

In the office, a pleasant-looking man in his late sixties sat at the sheriff’s desk. “Have a seat, youngster, I’m Judge
Wickham. I preside over this county. I hear you’ve gotten yourself in a spot of trouble, is that right?”

“Well, sir, I thought it was other folks who were in trouble.” Jubal hoped the judge had a more sympathetic ear than Sheriff Morton. “If you could let me tell my side of it, sir, I think I can clear everything up.”

“We don’t have any lawyers or such around here.” The judge leaned back in his chair. “So I’m kind of it, son, do you understand? Be honest, but be careful what you say, right?”

“Yes, sir.” Jubal turned to Ron. “Deputy, you think I might throw some water on my face so I could wake up a bit?”

“You look fine the way you are, Storyboy. Just turn around there and tend to business.”

“I don’t think this young man is going to make a run for it, Ron.” The judge smiled, then changed his tone. “Take him out front to the pump and let him refresh himself, please.”

The grumbling deputy escorted Jubal to the pump and water trough bordering the wood-slated sidewalk, where Jubal spied Frisk tied securely alongside the horse of the newly departed gunman, Ty.

While Jubal doused his head at the pump, Ron dug in his pocket and gave a lump of sugar to Ty’s mare. “If you gave that mare the sugar, she’d a bit your hand off for what you done to her boyfriend Ty.” He snorted and shoved Jubal back toward the office.

Inside, Judge Wickham looked through his notes. “The sheriff said you admitted shooting the man who died yesterday.” The judge scanned the paper. “A certain Mr. Ty Blake, correct?”

Jubal nodded.

“You have to speak your answers, son, so I can write down your response.”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Yes, sir,’ what? ‘Yes, sir,’ you understand, or ‘Yes, sir,’ you shot him?”

“Yes, sir, to both, sir.”

“All right, sonny. Just start at the beginning and tell me the whole story.”

In the telling, Jubal found himself reliving the heartache of the incidents and the thrill of revenge when he was able to pay back some of the despicable acts of barbarism the gang of desperadoes had committed. He tried to keep his voice calm, but it was difficult. He spoke for twenty long minutes, leaving nothing out, except certain pertinent details of how his father had died and the condition of his sister. In the end, he wept openly until Deputy Ron spoke up.

“Shoot, boy. How you gonna prove that palaver? Hell’s fire.”

“That’s enough, Ron.”

“But, Judge, it’s his word against that ole boy Ty what’s-his-name. Besides, we got us a dying declaration from Ty stating that the ‘son’ did it.”

“Why was he there?” Jubal asked, trying to be resolute.

The deputy looked to the judge, who cleared his throat, “Who was where, son?

“Ty. Why was he at our farm? What were he and the others doing there? Send someone out to Morning Peak up that western slope. See if you don’t find a couple of them with their noses buried in the rocks. What were they doing
on my pa’s land? If I killed my family, why would I bring that bastard Ty into town here, can you answer me that? Why? Wouldn’t I just have lit out of there and let him rot? Why wouldn’t I hightail it up to Canada or someplace? It doesn’t make sense. What reason would I have to do such a thing—to bring him in here?”

“There were an ole boy down in Sonora I hear tell that did his whole family in, cousins and all.” Deputy Ron looked around the room. “Course, he were Mexican, so maybe you can’t rightly tell what he was thinking on.”

“Deputy, for Christ’s sake, watch your mouth,” replied Judge Wickham. “Where’s Morton?”

“Over to the hotel, on business, sir.”

“Well, pry him out of the bar and tell him to organize some hands to go out to the Young property and find those folks in the canyon. We’re going to have to dig up the family also.”

“Damnation, Judge. What’s to be pleased about stirring with bodies moldering in the ground being eaten on and such? Lordy.”

“I suspect you’ll do whatever I ask you to do or you’ll go back to cleaning spittoons at Sloan’s.”

Ron stomped out the door, giving everyone his opinion on the way. “By all rights, Judge, that skinny Storyboy ought to be the one digging. He put ‘em down there.”

After the deputy’s clumsy exit, Judge Wickham gathered his papers. “Guess we’re forgetting one thing, aren’t we, youngster?”

Jubal understood and walked himself back to his cell.

“I am going to hold you to your honor, son, I don’t have a key to lock your cell. What say you?”

Jubal sat on his hard bunk. “I’m not going anywhere, sir.”

“Mind you don’t.”

“If you want, Judge, I’ll go out there with the posse to tend my family. I’d rather that than leave it to Deputy Ron and Sheriff Morton.”

“That might be best. Maybe I’ll go along, just in case.” The judge tipped his hat.

Jubal wondered what “just in case” meant.

They left at midday, Jubal driving the buckboard. Ron, grousing about the long ride, kept up a steady stream of chatter. “… that feller’s name, Martinez. Something like that. Kilt every livin’ soul in his family at a get-together, never heard nothing like it.”

Judge Wickham sat beside Jubal. “Never mind about that boor, son. There are people aplenty in this world who are honest, sensitive folk.” He smiled. “Ron just doesn’t happen to be one of them.”

Seven of them traipsed up the long uphill grade from Cerro Vista to the Young family farm. The sheriff had insisted the doctor come along to have a look at the bodies. One fellow recruited by the sheriff fell asleep in the bed of the wagon, trying to snore away his hangover. A heavy ne’er-do-well named Tiny rode a small Indian paint that struggled with its weighty passenger.

As they rode into Young’s Valley, the sheriff looked
to Jubal, who in turn pointed up to a small rise north of the meadow. Jubal had piled rocks atop the new graves, marking them with simple crosses. The sheriff ordered his boys to get started.

Jubal grabbed a pickaxe and started digging, only to be told by Sheriff Morton to step aside, as he wouldn’t be needed. He glanced at Judge Wickham, who shrugged. Morton and Deputy Ron both took shovels, along with the two townies, and started in.

Relieved he wouldn’t have to look into the dead faces of his family, Jubal drifted away. He sat with his back to them and gazed down into the valley at the devastated house and barn. It seemed all wrong to be back here. He honestly never thought he would see this land again.

The nightmare kept running, thankfully interrupted by the ignorant ranting of Deputy Ron.

“Lord, what we got here? Damn, Sheriff. They’s all laying there like mummies taking a sleep.”

“Ron, shut your face.” The sheriff walked over to Doc Brown, who watched the proceedings with arms folded over his ample stomach. “Doc, what are you thinking? Wanna get down in there or should we pull them out?”

Jubal rose from his tree-supported seat, trotting across the wide meadow toward the homestead. He didn’t want to be around for this.

“Don’t be drifting too far off, there, cowboy,” shouted Sheriff Morton. “You’re not out of the woods yet. Not ‘til the doc here tells us how these folk passed. Understand?”

Jubal waved his arm and continued on until he was out of sight. Arriving at the root cellar, he found that the blackened remains seemed sadder now. The sound of birds
filled the air, flowers sprouted a kaleidoscope of color, and somewhere out toward Morning Peak a bald eagle echoed his protest into the distant canyon. All the life and beauty served as a contrast, making his family’s destruction all the worse.

The entourage finally moved down to the homestead and found Jubal. Everyone had grown more reverential, even Deputy Ron.

“Get up on this buckboard, Storyboy,” said Sheriff Morton. “Lead us into that there valley, canyon, or whatever you want to call it, and show us those other folk, what you killed on your so-called bridge.”

“We’ll not be able to go the whole way with the wagon, sir.” Jubal took the reins. “We’ll have to walk in the last half mile.”

Morton grumbled as Jubal coaxed Frisk up the start of the trail. Once they reached the steepest part of the incline, they secured the horses to the surrounding trees and started hoofing it up the canyon’s interior. It took nearly an hour before Jubal thought they were close to being near the log bridge.

“Somewhere here on the west side of the canyon, sir, that’s where they fell.” He pointed so the sheriff could see the ravine up ahead that dug into the canyon wall.

“You men spread out, take a look-see.” The lawman stood rock-still. “Hold it. Did one of you say something? Quiet down.”

They all settled.

“There it is again. Ah, hell, it’s just a coyote or, no, dammit. Listen.”