The Savage Curse (19 page)

“Johnny, you're playin' with fire, ain't you?”

John thought about Abernathy and his reaction not only to the ore sample but to the sacks of gold dust. He had seen such looks before, in Cherry Creek, Denver, Cheyenne. Gold did funny things to a man, any man, and Abernathy's excitement was plain to see. If his hunch was right, the man would brag about his morning's business to anyone who would listen. And there probably wasn't a man in Tucson who wouldn't.

“Playing with fire, Ben?” John said. “I sure hope so.”

24

VENDORS BEGAN TO SET OUT THEIR WARES AS THE SUN ROSE higher, splashing light on the adobe buildings. Unmarked and painted pottery sat on wooden boards nailed into square platforms. Women draped serapes and rugs over sawhorses and displayed turquoise trinkets, bracelets, necklaces, rings, spoons, knives, and forks, attached to cloth-covered boards leaned against the front of buildings. Mexicans drove
carretas
, small carts, drawn by burros, down every street, hawking their wares of copper pots, fresh chickens, eggs, piglets in wooden cages, pitchers and bowls, wooden toys painted with ancient Navajo symbols.

Log roof beams jutted from the top floors of adobe buildings and they read signs on false fronts that proclaimed ABARROTES, COMIDAS, and TORTILLERILLA. Indian men and women, Hopis, wore plum-colored shirts and sat in shady spots hawking beads and deerskin moccasins, purses and belt pouches, knives made from wagon springs lying next to beaded sheaths.

The air smelled clean and fresh, and the smells of corn and flour tortillas wafted on the morning air. The carts stirred up little dust in the damp streets and the scent of wood smoke was pleasant, mixed with the smoke of strong tobacco and charcoal. Two large wagons loomed ahead of Ben and John, lumbering down the street with flocks of boys on either side chattering in Spanish.

The wagons were stacked high with pine coffins, whip-sawed boards nailed together with square nails from the local foundry. The mules left signs of their passing in steaming clumps on the street, and that smell mingled with the taint of urine emptied from full bladders.

“Are them coffins?” Ben asked as if he already knew the question was inane.

“What do you think?” John said.

“They sure is a passel of 'em.”

“I counted twelve. Six in each wagon.”

“Where they takin' them?”

“Let's find out,” John said.

They followed the wagons for another two blocks. The lead wagon stopped in front of a false front erected on an adobe building. The driver set the brake, climbed down and walked around it, then stepped up on the boardwalk. The sign in the window read: PERCIVAL MARLEY & SON, UNDERTAKERS.

A man came out of the establishment and spoke to the driver, pointed to the end of the block, and made a circling motion with his hands. Ben and John rode up close enough to hear him.

“Take them around to the alley in back. There's a loading dock where you can set 'em.”

“You got somebody to help us, Mr. Marley?”

“My son will be waitin' for you. Get along now. You're blockin' the street.”

The driver touched a finger to the brim of his derby hat and walked back around the wagon.

“We're goin' out back, Jenks. Just foller me.”

Jenks nodded. He was a younger man, no more than fifteen or sixteen, John figured, and he was hatless. Both men wore suspenders and heavy work boots. They smelled of pine shavings and wagon grease. The mules slapped their tails at flies and shook their heads to get rid of the pests.

The wagons pulled away as Marley went back inside. He was a florid-faced man, dressed in a black suit. He wore a black string tie that made him look even more slender than he was. Ben and John could hear him yelling to someone in the back of the large, oblong room that was filled with open caskets on display.

“Looks like that gent's got him some business,” Ben said.

“I wonder,” John said, “if his customers are wearing U.S. Army uniforms.”

“Hey, I never thought of that,” Ben said. “D'you suppose . . .”

“I do,” John said and clucked to his horse, prodding his flanks with his spurs. They rode another block and stopped in front of a small building, also adobe, with a false front. The lettering on the window announced that it was the sheriff's office, and beneath it, the name SAM WILTS, SHERIFF.

There was a hitchrail out front. A half dozen saddled horses were lined up, their reins wrapped around the top rail. Next to the horses there was a small burro, a blanket for a saddle, wearing a rope bridle, tied to a post.

Both John and Ben noticed the A brands on the hips of the horses.

“Looks like army,” Ben said.

“And no soldiers anywhere in sight.”

“What're you getting' at, John?”

“Maybe nothing.” John's eyes narrowed in thought, but he didn't elaborate. All of the rifle scabbards were empty, and there was a long rope through all the bit rings.

The two men tied their horses to vacant posts and walked into the sheriff's office. A man wearing a badge sat behind a small cherrywood desk, his protruding belly pouring over his gunbelt. He had a handlebar moustache and flaring sideburns that fuzzed out gray at the ends. His small wet mouth was tobacco-stained a mottled brown, and his small receding chin was almost lost in the bulge of his thick neck. A lean slat of a man stood to one side, arms folded, a deputy's badge on his vest, while a small Mexican man, holding a straw sombrero in his hand, stood in front of the desk, his black hair sodden with sweat, glistening like black velvet in the sunlight that blared from the front window.

Sheriff Sam Wilts looked at John and Ben, his eyebrows arching in a silent inquisitive signal.

“Gentleman,” Wilts said in a noncommittal tone.

“You Sheriff Wilts?” John said.

“That depends. He owe you money?”

Ben snickered.

The deputy chortled.

The Mexican's eyes glittered under hooded cowls.

“If you are Wilts,” John said, “I have a message for you from Lieutenant Clive Bellaugh.”

John spoke so soft the sheriff and deputy both had to lean forward to hear from him. But now he had their complete attention.

“You what?”

“You heard me,” John said, his patience thinning down to the size of a wheat straw.

“Bellaugh?”

“That's the one,” John said.

“What's the message?”

John told him about the detachment being jumped by some white men and Navajos. He told Wilts that only Bellaugh and Dunhill had escaped.

“Both were badly wounded when they rode up to the Gill ranch. Corporal Dunhill died, and Bellaugh might be dead by now. He was shot up pretty bad. Lost a lot of blood.”

“The hell you say.”

“The message from Bellaugh to you is this, Sheriff. He knows the name of two men who attacked him.”

“He does?”

“That's what I said.”

“What are the names?”

John let several seconds pass by. He wanted both Wilts and his deputy to keep that curious expression on their faces. He wanted to see how those expressions changed when he mentioned the names of the two men.

“Crudder and Hobart,” John said.

The deputy's mouth dropped open like the trapdoor on a gallows stage.

Sheriff Wilts pooched out his lips as his eyes bulged like a pair of bubbles in a pot of boiling grits.

He scooted back in his chair and looked hard at the Mexican.

“Manolito,” he said, “do you know those men?”

Manolito shook his head.

“I do not know them, but I heard their names called when they were fighting the soldiers.”

“Manolito here was hunting rattlesnakes when he heard the soldiers coming. Then he heard the ambush. He brought those horses back. And he brought the dead men here in a wagon last night. He said the outlaws and the Indians killed all the soldiers. He didn't know that two got away. The others were run off or captured by Indians.”

“Did he say where Hobart and Crudder went?” John asked.

“He said they rode south, toward Mexico.”

“Do you know Hobart and Crudder, Sheriff?”

“I know of them. They stayed in Tucson a while back, then up and disappeared. I figured good riddance.”

“Didn't you know Hobart was a wanted man?”

“I do now. I found a flyer in my stack of wanted dodgers. Why? You know this jasper?”

“No, I don't know him,” John said.

“Who are you anyway? I don't believe I caught your names?”

“I'm John Savage. This is Ben Russell.”

“You wanted for anything?”

“I don't think so,” John said.

“How come you're in Tucson and bringin' me that message from Lieutenant Bellaugh?”

“We bought the Gill mine from Gale. I brought in an ore sample this morning. Bellaugh knew we were headed for Tucson.”

Wilts opened a drawer in his desk and picked up a stack of wanted flyers. He riffled through them while the deputy looked on. When he was finished, he put the flyers back in his drawer and closed it.

“No dodgers on you two,” Wilts said.

“I'm glad we're not under suspicion for delivering a message,” John said, his words laden with sarcasm.

“Yeah,” Ben said, “we're just citizens doin' our duty.”

Wilts glared at Ben.

“I thank you, gents,” Wilts said. “Anything else?”

“Not as far as we're concerned,” John said. “We'll be heading out.”

“See you again, maybe.”

“Aren't you goin' after Hobart?” Ben asked. “Formin' a posse or somethin'?”

“No,” Wilts said. “He's out of my jurisdiction. Probably settin' in Nogales, nigh on a hunnert miles from here. If he's in Mexico, I couldn't go after him anyway. I'll let the army know, and they'll tell the U.S. marshal, maybe.”

“Do you know why that detachment was hunting Hobart?” John asked. It was not a friendly question.

“Well, there was a mine robbed, and the army said they'd handle it.”

“Just what do you do here, Sheriff? Let the army capture your outlaws?”

“Mister, you just stepped over the line. I do my job, that's all you need to know.”

John touched a finger to the brim of his hat and smiled.

“See you, Sheriff.”

“Sam,” the deputy said, “you never heard that man's name before?”

“What man's name, Leon?”

“That man there, the young 'un.”

“Nope. Why?”

“John Savage, ain't it?” Leon said.

“That's right,” John said.

“Wasn't you the one out in Coloraddy what was robbed, your family kilt and all. And wasn't Hobart the man who done it?”

“You've got a very bright deputy, Sheriff,” John said.

Then he and Ben walked out the door, leaving the three men inside wearing blank masks that might have been sculpted out of wet putty.

After John and Ben saddled up and rode away, Ben blurted out what was on his mind.

“Mexico,” he said. “We goin' after Hobart? Couldn't be hard to find him if he's just over the border.”

“No, Ben,” we're not going to chase Ollie anymore. He's going to come to us.”

“What makes you think he'll come back to Tucson?”

“It only takes one,” John said.

“One what?”

“One greedy man. And we have one right here in Tucson, I'm pretty sure.”

“We do? Who?”

“That assayer. Abernathy. I'll bet he knows where Hobart is and has already sent word down to him about you and me and our rock of gold.”

“John, you just surprise the hell out of me ever' time I think I got you figgered out. What makes you think Abernathy knows where Hobart is and is going to send word to him?”

“That other mine,” John said. “Somebody had to tell Ollie about the gold. And who knew? Abernathy.”

“Well, I'll be damned. That sure could be, Johnny. It sure could.”

“I'd bet on it,” John said.

John studied the various buildings as they rode through town. “There it is,” he said when they reached the edge of town.

“There's what?” Ben said.

“The La Copa. The cantina where Hobart hangs out.”

“We going inside?”

“No, not now,” John said as they rode on by.

Just south of town, they saw the tracks of a shod horse heading south. They were visible in the once-damp earth that was now drying fast and deep under the radiance of the blazing sun. Fresh horse tracks heading south into a desolate land where nobody on a good horse had any legitimate reason to go.

And Nogales, Mexico, was less than a week's ride from Tucson.

25

BEN WAS TERRIFIED OF SCORPIONS.

John had found that out shortly after he and Ben had begun melting down the gold dust in iron ladles, streaming the liquid into porous volcanic rock that they placed in the mine. In the heat of the afternoon, Ben had seen something at the edge of the mineshaft, something that looked like a broken twig. He had reached down to pick it up when the creature struck at him, jabbing his fingertip with the barb on the end of its tail.

Ben screamed and doubled over in pain. The scorpion stalked Ben, its tail curled up for another strike.

“Get it, Johnny, get it quick.”

Ben stood there, frozen in terror, holding his injured finger which had begun to swell. The scorpion struck at Ben's boot and the blood drained from his face. He fell over in a dead swoon.