As I helped get the big man laid out as comfortable as possible on the flat bed of the buckboard, he looked up at me, the watering eyes still pain-filled. ‘I won’t forget this, Mister,’ and he squeezed my hand, almost gently I think. It reassured me that he meant the words in the best possible way and that they were in no way intended as a threat.
Suddenly, Billy Bob Hunt was at my shoulder. ‘You surely do surprise a fellow, Mr Bassett. I have never seen anyone put Heck Monroe on his back before and never expected to.’
‘You have not seen the worst of me, Billy Bob. You should see me when I am really angry.’
I left him to think that over and made my way over to Ben’s barbershop for a shave, and then to the hotel for a hot bath. As I crossed the street, I saw Henri Larsson watching from the open door of the Overland stage office. She was smiling but did not wave.
CHAPTER TEN
The one-eyed man
The day following my encounter with Heck Monroe, I bought a length of fishing line, some hooks, a bobber and a sinker. Following a quick visit to the sheriff’s office, I set out to the clearwater stream he was so fond of visiting on stormy days, when to stay in town would have threatened his health some. Billy Bob was delighted to draw me a little map showing the location of Springwater Creek and the whereabouts of the best deep holes nearest to the town. He sounded genuinely regretful that he could not join me, but taxes were due and it was a profitable part of his job as county sheriff to collect them.
By noon I had a couple of brace, four fair-sized crappies strung out on a line in the shallows, awaiting my appetite to reach a pitch where I could get enough enthusiasm together to build a small campfire and cook a pair of them. I was settled on a soft grass patch with the Morgan hobbled a few yards from me, my hat over my eyes, and half covered by the newspaper I had borrowed from the lobby of the Wayfarer’s Hotel.
‘You look pretty peaceful, Kid. I guess the name stuck. You should be more careful, though; you are not the most popular man in Riverton County.’ The voice was almost a whisper.
I looked up at the one-eyed man, and moved the newspaper from where it covered my hand and revealed the Colt that was levelled at his belly. ‘I had you spotted ten minutes ago, old man, when you showed your head above that rise beyond the willows.’
He laughed. ‘You can put that piece away. Were I really dogging you, my hat would not have been above that rise, Kid.’
‘The Peaceful River Kid does not exist. How many times do I have to tell people?’
Jack Temple squatted down beside me and took the makings from his shirt pocket, rolled a cigarette and tossed me the sack of Durham. ‘You caught anything?’
‘A couple of brace of crappies. I was just thinking about building a fire under two them when I saw your big hat out there. What the hell are you doing this far south?’
‘I might ask you the same question.’
We lit our smokes from the same match and I stared into his right pale blue eye. ‘If my memory serves me correctly – and it usually does – last time I saw you, that patch was on your right eye and the left eye was black. Today it’s on the left and your right eye is pale blue.’
‘I like to keep folk guessing.’
‘It is called heterochromia,’ I said, enjoying the taste of the smoke.
‘Not many people know that,’ Temple said.
‘I am well-read,’ I said.
‘Louis Bassett of Wichita, Kansas, last time I saw you, if my memory serves me correctly, you were holding a busted flush and had rankled the hell out of three men enough for them to kill you. You still trying to fill inside straights?’
‘When I get the chance; it’s a bad habit. I have more than most.’
‘I thought you were long dead. You must keep your head down.’
‘Mostly along the east coast, Louisiana, New Orleans, the river boats, boom towns wherever there is loose money to be found. Worked cattle for a while, but my backside complained.’
Lying comes easily to me; maybe I should have been a politician.
‘You a rich man now, Kid?’
‘At this very moment, dirt poor, but I’m going to try my luck below the border; seems there is some federal paper out on me this side of the river.’
‘So I have heard. You also seem to have been a busy man here: shot the ear off one of my employer’s top hands, kicked the crap out of another.’
‘Your employer Frank Vagg, by any chance?’
‘By every chance.’
‘Like I said, I have a lot of unpleasant habits and getting shot or beaten to death are not among them. And stop calling me Kid; I’m just coming to terms with being an old man.’
‘OK, Mr Bassett, I may have a proposition for you.’ He put a big emphasis on the word ‘Mr’.
‘And that would be. . . ?’
‘My employer is looking for a man who can handle men, knows cattle and isn’t afraid to get his hands a little dirty, if you know what I mean.’
‘I’m not sure that I do.’
‘Yes, you do. Anyway, think it over and let me know. Come out to the Circle and meet the old man. He’s pretty impressed by the way you handled two of his best men.’
‘This Mr Vagg . . . he ever come to town? I mean, this side of the river?’
‘Once a week, maybe.’
‘Well, you tell him next time he comes to come see me. I’m staying at the Wayfarer’s and do not fancy a long ride for what might turn out to be a waste of both our times.’
Temple stubbed his cigarette out on a rock and said, ‘You going to eat both of those crappies, Mr Bassett? If not, we can share them, and the bottle I have in my saddle-bag.’
‘Call me Lou,’ I said, ‘and get the bottle while I get a fire under them fish.’
Dark thunderheads were gathering over the grey granite cliffs, and there was a defined smell of rain on the breeze that drifted down from the rocky escarpments to the far west of San Pedro. It would be a wet night.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pasteboards cannot shoot
Later that evening, washed up and the dust brushed from my town suit, I slipped a note under Henri Larsson’s door asking her to come to my room if convenient. It was, and ten minutes later I answered her brief knock on my door.
‘Both of your boots on, fully clothed and no pistol: oh my, Kid, you have come a long way.’
She was smiling and I simply rolled my eyes, turned down the lamp a little and closed the door behind her. There was something about her I liked: not just her flashing eyes, her dark hair or her soft voice. Something more than that: there was a whole person there, hidden behind a façade of lightness. It was as if, for some strange reason, she was a little uncertain of herself in my company. Not in any way in awe of me but of my reputation that, within the agency and without exaggeration, was something I was not overly proud of. I was considered by some to be a loose cannon, which on occasions was of use to them, and on others something of an embarrassment. This feeling did not extend to Agent in Charge Joshua Beaufort or young Benbow, and to others I had worked with, but to newly appointed agents. I guess old tales stuck, and my last case had ended in bloodshed and disaster with little to show for it other than the death of a fellow agent. In the larger scheme of things, it was a success. However, it was a case closed, and with the approval and appreciation of the US Government and the attorney general. An acceptable result to the officers, maybe, but not necessarily to the troops – the field agents who risk their lives daily in the pursuit of justice. The circumstances of Kathleen Riley’s death would always walk in my shadow within the agency. These things I understand, but they nevertheless trouble and confuse me.
‘Sit down, make yourself comfortable, drink, smoke, sing and dance if you want, but for heaven’s sake, stop calling me Kid. I’m damn near old enough to be your father.’ I turned down the lamp a little more, set two glasses on the small table and poured us a couple of drinks.
‘Does it really bother you that much?’ She had a lo
vely voice, a mere hint of an accent, and her words were not wrapped in a smile this time as they usually were.
Strangely enough, I felt it to be a genuine question. ‘Yes, more so from you than anyone.’
‘Then I will cease henceforth, sir, and I am sorry if I offended you.’
‘Damn it,’ I said, ‘you haven’t offended me, it’s just, it’s just, it’s. . . .’ I was lost for words, and that was unusual for me.
She walked over to me and held out her right hand. ‘Agent Larsson reporting for duty, Lucas. The smile was back but it was a serious kind of a smile; almost a sad smile.
I took her hand and held it a little longer than necessary, released it, threw my best winning smile at her, passed her a glass and tapped it with mine. ‘Looking forward to working with you, Agent Larsson.’
‘Likewise. Now to the business in hand.’
I stared out of the closed window, listening to her soft voice as she told of her discoveries working both in the post office and her short stint in the Land Registry office. Outside the promised rain arrived, backed by a strong wind and sheet lightning that lit up the rocky background to the east side of Main Street. Two men rode in, splashing through the puddles formed on the hardbacked soil, their yellow slickers glistening in the reflected afterglow of the lightning. They rode straight into the open doors of the livery and, moments later, ran out and headed for the Red Diamond. I wondered why they bothered to run; they must have already been soaked through to the skin.
‘Nothing much to report from the post office: some mail from San Antonio for Vagg and a couple of empty Wells Fargo boxes for the Merchant Bank.’ She sipped her drink and I refilled my glass. ‘Interesting find in the land office, though. Seems Vagg has been buying up a lot of land to the east of the town but avoided any from the west. Seems he prefers the flat land to the rocky ground of the west. Also of interest to you is that he hasn’t filed on much of it yet at the county seat in Riverton, but his sister has.’
‘Perhaps he is just acquisitive, one of those ranchers who maybe cannot stand neighbours, but it is worth noting and maybe I can use it. Find an easterly property nearer to town that hasn’t been homestead proved; maybe he would like me as a neighbour. Better yet, find me one that she hasn’t yet filed. Stir them up a little.’
‘You find anything on your ride out?’
‘Nothing much to say on that, other than he is coming to town shortly and may be offering me a job as a trouble-shooter on the Circle V.’
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘Long story. I will let you know if it actually happens.’
That answer did not exactly please her.
We talked long into the evening, and I was conscious that I had missed supper and the alcohol was having some effect on my thinking.
‘Do you not like working with me, Lucas, or is it just because I am a woman?’
Her words, after one long silence, caught me unawares.
I thought about her question long and hard. It deserved a thoughtful answer if I could find one. ‘No, I am happy enough to work with you, but I have not fared well with partners over the years. Several of them have ended up dead; even my wife was killed because of me. I seem to be a magnet for bullets.’
She thought about that while I refilled our glasses. ‘Life is just one big tragedy for all of us. We are all born to die, some sooner than others; it cannot be avoided.’
‘To some extent it can be,’ I said. ‘You have a bad hand, you throw it in; you walk away, never draw to an inside straight . . . that way you can shorten the odds and maybe stay in the game a little longer.’
‘Why play the game if you cannot afford to take a chance? It is your choice, as it is the choice of others who wish to be near you. I could walk away tomorrow if I was worried about your behaviour. Beaufort would support me in that.’
‘It is not that simple,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you ride your luck. You stay in a game a hand too long and walk away with nothing or, in some cases, you don’t walk away at all.’
The sheet lightning bounced back around the town, lighting up the room momentarily, and I could see her staring at me, thinking I knew not what. ‘Like I said, it is a choice. I signed on for this,’ she said eventually.
I shook my head and chewed the inside of my lower lip, something I was apt to do when thinking too deeply. ‘So, you believe, like Shakespeare, that all the world’s a stage, that we are merely players and our entrances and exits are preordained?’
She got to her feet and faced me across the room, her figure framed in lightning: a vision, a disturbing vision.
‘You know something, Lucas Santana? You read too much.’ Then the smile. ‘That may be a better thing to believe in than that your exit is realised through the mere turn of a Bicycle playing card.’
‘A pasteboard cannot shoot.’
‘True, but the man turning that card for you can. Goodnight, Lucas.’
She brushed past me, touched my arm gently, opened the door and was gone. I stood by the window for a long time, watching the night. Presently the two riders, still in their slickers and somewhat unsteady on their feet, walked into the stable and emerged five minutes later, walking their mounts carefully on Main Street, and headed south.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The ravens
The following morning, more suitably dressed in faded Levi’s and wearing an equally faded denim shirt, I consulted the rough map Agent Henri Larsson had produced for me. I set out to explore the countryside to the west of San Pedro.
The immediate terrain to both the east and west of San Pedro was much the same: rocky backdrops, high grey bluffs dropping down to green pasture and green wooded land. That green giving way to brown marshy, sandy soil leading to the actual river, which was running low, and crossable without getting a boot full of water. The main difference was that to the east the land flattened out quite quickly, whereas to the west the escarpment got higher and the terrain less attractive to horse or rider. It would take me more than one day to cover both and I thought to get the harder ride over and done with would better suit by backside.
The countryside was littered with run-down and abandoned dwellings, homesteads mostly, with a sprinkling of small two by four ranches. The homesteads were the saddest. Some had been deserted in a hurry, leaving behind the too-heavy-to-tote trappings of what once was family life: a piano, a rocking chair, a table and a child’s toys, a rag doll in a play crib, books and clothes. Barns with harness and tools still where they were last stored, and maybe used. In the back of one there were two graves, their markers indicating that they were the last resting places of two children left behind, with no one to tend their graves. I spent a few minutes clearing the tumbleweed and the long grass from them and straightening and reseating their markers. John and Bridget Faulkner, both ten years old. Twins, maybe. I wondered where their parents were and if they were still alive, or if, like their children, they were buried beneath the fertile land that bounded this area of the Rio Grande valley.
I saw few signs of wildlife and a total absence of ravens, birds that were usually so prolific in those rocky parts of the Texas border country. The smell of Mexican food drifted across the wide river, and with it the occasional sound of music and once the sound of rifle fire. I turned back northwest after watering the hired Morgan in the big river; he was a sure-footed animal and did not seem to object to the rough terrain. Avoiding the Rio, telling myself it was not a good day to visit Mexico, I headed toward what my map told me was the land owned and occupied by the mysterious Frank Vagg. The stink of death and decay reached me as I entered a small stand of cottonwoods. It was a stench the wildflowers that bloomed in abundance in their shelter could not hide. The Morgan snorted its displeasure but I pushed him on, wanting to be clear of it myself. Passing a large cottonwood, the source of the stink became clear. It also answered my question of the missing ravens: they were all there, a long line of wire stretched from tall tree to tall tree and dressed in dead birds. Seve
ral hundred ravens in various stages of decay draped on what trappers called the Vermin Pole. Beneath the hanging birds were the remains of several hundred more; birds that had once dressed the wire and had now fallen to become part of the earth from which they came. It was a pitiful and disgusting sight, and for a moment I felt an overwhelming anger – rage, really – that quickly dissipated as I considered my options of venting that rage and finding nothing there. It was done.
I hobbled the Morgan in the grassy shade of a small stand of Ponderosa pine and continued on foot after changing into a pair moccasins purchased from the general store that morning. Pointy-toed, high-heeled riding boots are not compatible to walking over rough ground. After a couple of hours wandering I had seen a lot more than I expected. Cattle roamed loose everywhere, many of them unbranded. Small groups of men gathered in the shade playing cards or sleeping, some with a small campfire burning under a blackened coffee pot. They were, by and large, a mixed bunch of men, neither cowboys nor gunmen: a raggle-taggle bunch of individuals from both sides of the borderline, men in range clothes and all well armed. They seemed at a loss as to how best to spend their time. I was briefly tempted to wander down and join one group in the hope of a hot coffee, but slipped through the trees behind them and moved on to where I thought I had heard the distressed cry of a raven.
First, I found the man’s horse tied off to a large fallen branch. I paused and listened again for the forlorn sound of the bird. Ravens have many voices and this one was obviously distressed. I picked my way quietly through the brush until I detected the heavy smell of pipe tobacco on the clear air.
He was dressed much as the men I had seen, partially hidden behind a brush screen, sitting cross-legged, a rifle across his lap and a corncob pipe jutting from his bearded face. A little to his left and below, close by to a puddle of the overnight rainwater, he had staked out a juvenile raven as, I supposed, bait for other birds. Its leg was tied by a leather thong to a wooden stake wedged firmly into a cleft in the hard rock. One wing draped the ground, but it seems it had long ago given up the fight. A mewing sound was heard, its head bent toward the water, which was just out of reach.
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