Trouble at Temescal

by Frank Bonham

  Troy pushed his cards away. “If I’ve got any luck left, I don’t want to waste it on poker.”

  Saddler shrugged. He was the freshest and least concerned of all. With its adobe walls and oiled-earth floor, the saloon was cold and cheerless as a mine. Troy shook the colonel gently. “How about some food, old-timer?”

  Colonel Ike rubbed his face with his hands, affected a miraculous recovery, and got up, staggering a little. “Bill and Emma ought to be open. Come on.”

  They went into the street. Eight Defiance Mountains men left the saloon and a few, grown serious about their liquor, stayed behind. They were at the corner when a girl called Troy’s name. She stood across the street. He could not see her but he knew her voice.

  “That’s Becket’s sister,” he told the others. “I’d better talk to her.”

  “Big sacrifice?” Saddler asked with a wink at Briscoe.

  “Not too big,” Troy conceded.

  The men walked down the side street to where a couple of wagons were parked before a café. Crossing the street, Troy saw the girl come from the alcoved doorway of an apothecary shop. She wore a shawl over her head, pulled closely about her face. As Troy reached her, she gave him her hand.

  “Thank you,” she said. “For saving his life, Troy, even if you couldn’t keep him out of trouble.”

  He did not know how to reassure her. He said: “We’ll get it all straightened out once we get him to Tucson.”

  “Of course.” She smiled. Framed by the shawl, her features were simple and sweet and beautiful. He kept on holding her hands, and he had a strong urge to draw her to him. As if she sensed it, she drew them away. She shivered.

  “I’ve been waiting until I’m cold through!”

  “Why didn’t you send Mattson for me?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to know we were together. I’m so afraid they’ll find out where Gil is. Reverend Stiles says everything is fine. But how long can it stay fine, with Jackson trying to force Serena to give Gil away?”

  Men were moving down the boardwalk toward them. “How does he know she helped Gil?” Troy asked quickly.

  “Because she lied to him today to throw him off the trail. I heard them in her room a little while ago. He was trying to make her tell him where Gil is hiding. I was afraid she might give in.”

  “Not Serena.” Troy smiled. “You know, in her way, she’s as tough as her father. She’ll hold out until we get Gil to Tucson.”

  “Just the same,” she said, “I wish he could be moved tonight, while it’s dark.”

  He heard the men on the boardwalk stop a few stores away, rattle a locked door, and move on. “Not with Jackson’s men on the prowl,” he said.

  She did not argue it. In the raking wind, they stood in the alcove. Along the street, the lamps shone with a frosty nimbus of dust. “There’s something else,” Fran said at last. “We found something strange at Mike Saddler’s cabin. Serena thought it meant a lot. Most of his valuables were stored in the spring house. Serena seemed to think it meant he’d burned his own cabin.”

  She went on to explain Serena’s theory of why Saddler would have done it. Troy felt suddenly tired and depleted. Saddler and his hellish sweat to be making trouble. Turning them against Jackson, and Jackson against them. Striking sparks for their tinder. Saddler, out on a limb unless there was a war.

  “Fran, I’ll take you back to the hotel,” Troy said shortly. “Saddler’s down at the café. I’m going to put it to him.”

  Spurred boots came on to the store next to where they stood, stopped, and some men rattled the door. The voice of Owen McCard said something. The men strolled on to the apothecary shop. Fran glanced quizzically at Troy. He squeezed her hand and turned to face the street. Two men started to head into the alcoved entrance. Then one saw them and put out his arm to halt the other, staring at Troy and Fran. His hand dropped to his Colt. It was Owen McCard, Jackson’s lean range boss.

  “Leave it alone, McCard,” Troy said.

  McCard’s shoulders slackened. “Cameron!” he exclaimed. “What …?”

  “Don’t you bird dogs have a home?” Troy asked.

  McCard squinted at Fran. “Ain’t that Becket’s sister?”

  “Yes. I think you ought to take off your hats.”

  He said it very seriously, and McCard and the other man reached up automatically to tip their hats.

  Frances Becket said soberly: “How do you do? Are we in

  your way?”

  McCard glanced at Cameron, found no comfort there, and looked at his companion. “No, ma’am. Just thought the store might be open. Well, Abe, I reckon we’d better …”

  “You’re a good influence on McCard,” Troy said as the pair left. “I never saw him smile before.”

  She looked up, her eyes too innocent. “I’m afraid I’m not doing your reputation any good, Troy. First I arrive in a flurry of red and take you off to the mountains. Now I’m seen in a dark doorway with you. Your young lady won’t like it a bit.”

  Something told Troy that she had become quite conscious of him for himself, not merely as a friend of Gil’s. At the same time he was acutely aware that she was very young, extremely attractive, and that her lips were moist and beautifully shaped.

  “My young lady,” he agreed, “probably wouldn’t like it, except that she understands the situation.”

  He kept looking into her face, while the excitement in him strengthened. He was going to kiss her. He knew that. But under the circumstances, he didn’t know what excuse to make. Still he was going to do it and worry about complications afterward. He saw her smile fade. She acted abashed but excited, also.

  “Well…,” she said weakly, “well, I suppose …”

  His hands opened her cape and found her body warm and soft. He pulled her against him. Her cape fluttered in the wind, but inside they were warm, pressed together. Her face turned up and they kissed eagerly.

  She was pushing him away. He let her go. Her eyes were all pupils; her face was pale. He felt she must understand what had happened, but did she? It had happened to both of them, but had she seen it exactly as he did? Because the strange thing was that his making love to her did not seem to alter his feeling for Serena.

  His Stetson had fallen. He turned to find it. When he rose, he said nervously: “Now we’ve got something to forget together. I’m quite sure my young lady wouldn’t understand that.”

  They started for the hotel. The hard cut of the wind began to cool him.

  “No, I don’t think any girl would,” Fran said. “No girl would like to think that it could be that way with any other girl.”

  He took her arm, watching the tips of her boots as they moved in and out under her cape. He felt she should understand, so he spoke very carefully.

  “It’s funny how you can love one person,” he said, “and like another very much, and yet …”

  She smiled faintly. “Now, which person am I, I wonder?”

  “Fran, don’t misunderstand me …”

  She put her hand on his arm. “Troy, I do understand. I’m grateful for your help. Only I hope you’ll be sure to understand yourself.”

  She went into the hotel. Disturbed, he pushed his hands into the pockets of his jacket and crossed the street. That had been a stupid thing to do. She would make much of it, and he would feel like a philanderer.

  Remembering Saddler now, he walked down the street that tilted from the center toward some small homes and leafless orchards. Reaching Bill and Emma’s Café, he halted and tried to see in through the window, but it was steamed over. He went in. The men were all at the counter drinking coffee while the cook filled their orders. His name was Bill Aperance and he went in for stake races and mustaches. This year he was wearing an imperial, his short black whiskers silver streaked, like the withers of a silvertip grizzly. He called to Troy.

  �
�Tell Saddler that bay of Mundy’s could beat his Morgan wearing cast-iron shoes!”

  Saddler was at the near end of the counter. Troy took the stool beside him. Aperance thumped a gilded mustache cup before him. “If I told him that,” Troy said, “I’d be in a bet in thirty seconds, and everybody’d lose but you.”

  He noticed Saddler watching his reflection in the glass door of the china cupboard behind the counter. The counterman started to pour his coffee, stopped suddenly, and said: “Whoops! That’s the house cup.” He always kept the last, bitter cup for himself. “What’s new with Becket’s sister?” he asked.

  Saddler’s reflected features sharpened. Troy warmed his hands on the cup. “Worried,” he said.

  “What happened up there, boys?” Aperance asked in a low, confidential tone.

  There was an embarrassed hush. “Don’t know for sure yet,” Troy said. “Mike,” he asked, “what was it you told us you saved from the fire?”

  Saddler’s thick hand, lying on the counter near Troy’s, began to close. “I didn’t make an inventory, if that’s what you mean. I did get a few things out.”

  “A table and a butter mold, you said. Anything else?”

  Saddler stiffly turned his stool to stare at him. “A few things, I said. I put them in the spring house for shelter.”

  Troy saw him touch his lips with his tongue; nervousness dried a man’s mouth. “Things like furniture. A clock. Bullet molds. Pans. All your clothes. Things like that, Mike?”

  Saddler stood up and stepped away from the counter. “What’s on your mind?”

  Troy swung his stool. “After we left, the women found everything but the kitchen stove in your spring house. I thought you said you barely saved yourself.”

  “Most of that stuff was already stored there. I didn’t want Joe and Bill fouling it up.”

  Troy saw the dark face of Joe Wiley watching him. But Bill Thorne, Saddler’s other man, faced rigidly away.

  “That’s right,” Wiley said. “We might as well ’a’ been sleeping in a tree.”

  No one smiled.

  “That’s queer, Mike,” Troy pursued, “because when I was past your place a couple of weeks ago, it looked pretty well furnished. When did you decide Joe and Bill couldn’t be trusted?”

  Along the counter other men were twisting to stare at Saddler. Colonel Edwards stood up, his thin features whetting. Saddler held his big, ruddy face steady, but Troy saw his desperation.

  “Look, if there’s something you’re tryin’ to say …”

  “There is, Mike. I say you burned your own cabin. But first you moved out everything you could store.”

  The wind could be heard trying the edges of the door. Bill Aperance laughed nervously. “That’s a hell of a thing to accuse a man of, Troy.”

  Color flooded Saddler’s face. “Do I act crazy enough to …” His voice choked in his throat.

  “You’d have to be crazy not to burn your own cabin, after burning ours,” Troy pointed out. “Yesterday you had a fight with Jackson. You tried to sell us out and even Jackson couldn’t stomach that. He told you he was going to foreclose you first and you decided you’d better be sure of some friends. So you burned us out, and then talked us into raiding Roth’s wagons to be sure Jackson was ready to fight, too.”

  Colonel Ike moved in on Saddler. The old face of the pioneer rancher twisted. “They don’t come rottener,” he said. “A buzzard would lose color at the smell of you.”

  Saddler hit him.

  The old man lurched back against the counter. He sat down, his scuffed yellow boots thrown outward. Saddler regained his balance quickly as Troy came at him. Troy swung hard at his jaw and Saddler tilted a shoulder to take the ripping force of the blow. He staggered back, recovered, and slashed at Troy’s jaw. Troy blocked it and threw a roundhouse punch that hit Saddler on the ear. Saddler fell against a table. A table leg crumpled under his weight and a lazy Susan of condiments shattered on the floor as he fell with the table. He rolled over on his face, rested a moment, and got up. Now he came cautiously toward Troy, pressing his lips together, his breath snorting through his nostrils.

  Something whistled over their heads and crashed against the adobe wall. Plaster and broken glass littered the floor. Aperance, the proprietor, stood there with a second water tumbler in his hand.

  “Lookee, boys,” he said dryly, “I’m running a chophouse, not a boxing club.”

  Colonel Edwards was getting up shakily, his thin white hair mussed. Bob Briscoe held one of his arms. Saddler moved across the room to help, but the old man bared his teeth like a wolf.

  “Bunch quitter!” he snarled.

  Saddler walked to where his coat hung from a deer horn. He laid it over his arm. Joe Wiley and Bill Thorne joined him. Saddler gazed stiffly at Troy.

  “I’m no bunch quitter, Cameron. Someday you’ll know that. It’s up to you whether you believe me or Big Jim Jackson’s girl.”

  “I hate to think,” Troy said, “that I could figure a man so wrong.”

  He sat down before his coffee again and turned his back on Saddler. One by one, the others turned from Saddler. Aperance went to the big wood stove in the rear.

  “How’s that steak of mine doing?” the colonel asked.

  Aperance threw the steak on a plate and brought it forward. “Hope you like ’em well done,” he said uneasily.

  The colonel looked at the steak, and then at Troy. “That there’s a Mike Saddler special,” he said. “Burned to cinders.”

  Troy heard the door close behind Saddler. He thought of Gil Becket in the drafty belfry of the church.

  XVI

  As the wind died, the cold tightened its fist on the town. Saddler stood on the corner with the Basque and Bill Thorne. He remembered his friends’ faces as he left—like faces looking at him from an old tintype. Like those of people he had known long ago and left behind. He heard Wiley pop a match with his thumbnail and smelled the sulfur as he lighted a cigarette with his Stetson for shelter. Wiley blew out the smoke.

  “Gonna take out part of your pay in calves, Bill?” he asked. “The boss man said we could.”

  “Shut up,” Saddler snapped. “The deal with the bank is still on.”

  “With everybody in town down on you?” Wiley archly contained his anger.

  “That’s now. But that’s where I’m different from a lot of people. I ain’t quitting. There’s other ways …”

  “Will they work after they jug us for setting fires?”

  “Any law against storing furniture in a spring house?” Saddler retorted. His head ached from Cameron’s fist. He was trying to put something together. This town was a stick of blasting powder, and there had to be a match for it somewhere … He gazed at the dark bank building. Woodbury held some notes of Jackson’s, but they weren’t due yet. Nate Croft then. Croft hated Jackson because Jackson had helped him once and made a second-rate relation out of him. He’d heard Croft had tried to buy into Anvil since Jackson had been in money trouble. Red Roth was dying to get his hands on Gil. Gil! Maybe he was the key. Saddler’s blood hastened a little. Hell, no, he thought disgustedly. They’ll find the little fool, but I won’t sell him out. Bet I could find him, though.

  Wiley turned up the collar of his coat and studied the black sky. “Hear they’ve had some good rains up on the Verde,” he said. “Ought to be work up there, Bill. Seems like when it rains, there’s plenty of work and ranchers don’t mind paying for it. I mean with money, not promises.”

  Saddler drew a money poke from his pocket. “I’ll pay you both off right now, if that’s how you want it. But if you’ll gamble another twenty-four hours of your time, the deal we talked about may still be good.”

  His thin face sardonic, Joe Wiley said: “Can you give us a rough idea how you’re going to pass this miracle?”

  “I’m going to borrow money to pay off the
note on my place. That’ll clear me. Then …”

  “Who’s going to loan you the money?”

  “Bank, maybe. Will you leave that to me? Otherwise, you can get the devil out and you won’t be missed. But either way, shut your mouth or get out.”

  Wiley smiled. “All right. I’ll shut up so you can think. See you around tomorrow.”

  He and Thorne walked toward the plaza, dark hulks heading up the road.

  Mike Saddler walked stiffly to the Pima Bar. Tomorrow everyone in town would know about him and it would mean a fight every time he went in the saloon. The place was crowded, but he found a hole at the bar and ordered whiskey. Behind the bar, Nate Croft drifted to his place. Croft’s whiskers had come through the greasy skin; his jaws looked like the backside of a slab of bacon.

  “How’s the cattle king?” Croft asked him.

  “What’s that mean?” Saddler took the sting of the whiskey into his mouth.

  “Hear you’re figuring to run Anvil for the bank after Jackson loses it.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Jim Jackson,” Croft said. “Way he tells it, though, he’s takin’ over your A-Bar after you lose it.”

  Saddler appraised the saloonkeeper contemptuously. He spends his money like an Indian, he thought. Gold in his teeth, embroidered vest, a watch seal it would take two men to lift. God, to have money like that! “Why don’t you loan me the money to pay him off?” Saddler grinned suddenly. “Be worth it to hear him yell, wouldn’t it?”

  “Dang’ near.”

  “Pay ’em all off,” Saddler joked. “Then he’d be under the forked stick again. No notes, no foreclosures.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” Nate shrugged.

  All at once Saddler tensed. He stared at the saloonkeeper. Something tremendous commenced growing in him. He began to grin. He suppressed it at once and glanced at the men on either side of him. One was playing poker dice with a companion. The other man, half drunk, was moodily frowning into his drink.