by Paul Lederer
The saloon, the Golden Eagle a sign proclaimed, seemed to hush for a moment as Jake entered, but that might have been imagination, for it was a roaring boisterous place as he made his way toward the bar, poker chips clicking, men slapping down cards with a curse or a yell of delight, the constant sound of glass against glass and the occasional breaking of the same. There was no piano and no such thing as a bar girl to be seen. The town was too far west and too new to offer these refinements.
There was a line of greasy looking men, mostly bearded, ranked along the bar when Jake edged his way to it. They eyed him, looked away again and returned to their drinking, except for one bearish man with gray whiskers and a balding head who continued to glower. Jake ignored him and ordered a beer from the narrow, harried barkeep.
The mug arrived, Jake wrapped his hand around the glass and the bald man said roughly, ‘Are you supposed to be the law here?’
Jake glanced at the badge on his shirt, at the big man and at his amused friends and nodded. ‘I suppose so.’ He turned his back to them deliberately and asked the bartender, ‘Isn’t there any place in this town where a man can have a beer in peace?’
The barkeep didn’t smile. He only eased away as the big, balding man moved nearer to Jake.
‘I’m Hutch Gleason,’ he said.
‘I congratulate you,’ Jake said expressionlessly, stretching out his hand again toward the mug of amber liquid he had been served.
‘I heard you rode with Kit Blanchard,’ the man called Hutch Gleason said, raising his voice.
‘You heard wrong,’ Jake said quietly.
‘I heard Kit Blanchard is a dirty horse thief,’ Gleason persisted.
‘He seems to be,’ Jake agreed.
‘In fact he took some of my animals, blood stock.’
‘We’ll bring him in for it,’ Jake replied. ‘Your ponies are likely in Mexico by now, though.’
‘How would you know that?’ Gleason asked obnoxiously.
‘I’m talking about the odds of it.’
‘What about the odds of you catching him?’ Gleason, obviously drunk, moved still nearer. At the tables and along the bar men watched. It was cheap entertainment, after all.
‘We’ll try.’ Jake again reached for his beer mug, but Gleason stretched an arm around him and swatted it away. The mug slid along the polished surface of the bar, caught the rim and tipped over, falling to the floor.
‘I hear you gunned down Eduardo Blanco. I’m a lot better with a gun than Blanco ever was.’
Jake only nodded and said carefully, ‘I’m sure you are.’
‘You wouldn’t want to try me,’ Gleason continued.
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘If I wanted to, I could break you in half with my bare hands.’
Staggs nodded. ‘I wouldn’t doubt that either, you’re probably twice as strong as I am.’
‘Are you mocking me!’ Gleason bellowed. He lunged forward, infuriated or motivated by a need to impress his friends. Either way, he was a big, dangerous, out of control man. Jake took half a step back, braced himself against the bar and kicked Gleason in the kneecap as hard as he could. When Gleason groaned and bent forward to hold his knee Jake smashed down on his nose with his forearm. The crack of the blow could be heard across the now silent barroom, and Jake wondered for a moment if he hadn’t broken his own arm. But it was Gleason’s nose that had suffered and it spewed crimson blood as the big man looked up at Jake briefly, his eyes wide with astonishment, before he pitched forward on his face to land against the floor not far from where Jake’s empty beer mug lay.
Jake repeated his question to the barkeep: ‘Isn’t there any place in this town where a man can have a beer in peace?’
The bartender backed away mutely, fear in his eyes and Jake shrugged and stepped over the fallen Gleason. He made his way to the door and stepped out into the cool of the desert night as the uproar within gathered new momentum and volume. The doors swung shut behind him and he started on his way, more certain now than ever that he did not wish to be a lawman in Lewiston and equally certain that he could not remain long on the desert if he were to have any hope of surviving.
SIX
Jake awoke in his hotel bed as the first silver light of dawn pierced the devil sky roofing the desert. He rose feeling weary, dejected and defeated as he had every right to feel. He dressed with a sullen anger coiled inside him. Where had everything gone wrong? He would have liked to go to the restaurant, flirt with Cathy Vance, laugh and later look around for honest work.
But he was a deputy marshal assigned to track down a bloody killer or risk having his own neck stretched.
What else could a notorious burro-killer expect out of life?
Still, there was nothing for it but to vacillate and wriggle, to try to convince both Sarah and the marshal that an assault on Smuggler’s Gulch was a recipe for disaster, because that was exactly what it was. Marshal Trouffant could possibly be persuaded of that, but Sarah … she was Sarah. Jake wasn’t sure if it was vengeance or gold-lust that drove her, but either way she had no apparent objection to men dying as long as she achieved her ends.
Jake’s stomach complained that it was hungry as he stepped out into the low silver light of the morning, but there was a bad taste in his mouth overriding the impulse to eat. He stalked the plankwalk toward Trouffant’s office, still wondering if the bed-ridden marshal had not decided that a liaison with Sarah Worthy was a path to his own financial security. Obviously he could not hold office for much longer, the shape he was in, and he must have deep concerns about his own seemingly doomed livelihood. He had certainly seemed over-eager to pin a badge on a man he knew nothing about except that he had been responsible for the deaths of three wanted men.
‘Me,’ Jake muttered to himself. ‘A real gun dog, dark angel of retribution. Gunfighter and bounty killer.’ Except he was none of those. All he wanted was out of Lewiston, out of Arizona and as far away as he could possibly get from Kit Blanchard and the Smugglers Gulch gang.
There were a dozen horses drawn up in front of the marshal’s office and the sick feeling in Jake’s belly deepened. He knew already.…
‘Good morning,’ Deputy Bostwick said in greeting. The young man was smirking with amusement. ‘The marshal is waiting for you – with news about your posse.’
Jake trudged down the short corridor toward the marshal’s bedroom. Several rough-appearing men in dirty range clothes lounged along the walls. Jake ignored their scornfully appraising glances and proceeded into Trouffant’s room, finding four or five other men gathered around the marshal’s bed. At least, he thought thankfully, Sarah Worthy was not there.
But Hutch Gleason was.
The big balding man wore a strip of adhesive tape across his nose. One nostril was packed with cotton, and both of his eyes were blackened.
‘Good morning, Staggs,’ the marshal said from his bed. He was propped up on a pair of pillows and seemed better than the last time Jake had visited him. ‘I was hoping you’d drop around. This is Hutch Gleason – oh, you two have already met. I’d forgotten. He owns the Cat’s Cradle Ranch north of here, and he’s volunteered to bring in some of his hands to assist you in your pursuit of Kit Blanchard and his gang.’
Jake glanced around at the trail-dusty men.
Gleason’s expression was more than hostile. He said nothing but breathed heavily through his mouth as he stared at him.
‘It’s not possible,’ Jake said to the marshal. ‘The entrance to the canyon is heavily guarded. The number of men in our force means nothing. There’ll be sharpshooters posted in the rocks above. Any posse trying to enter will be picked off one by one like clay pigeons.’
‘That’s your opinion?’ Trouffant said wearily. He shifted to ease the pain in his back.
‘That’s the fact of the matter. The place is a fortress.’
‘Miss Worthy tells it differently,’ Trouffant rumbled. ‘She tells me that you know another way into the gorge, one which isn’t guarde
d.’
‘I stumbled upon it,’ Jake answered. ‘It was sheer chance. To reach it, you’d have to ride thirty miles south and climb the face of the hills from the low desert.’
‘You did it,’ Hutch Gleason said sullenly.
‘One man might do it – one man unexpected and apparently harmless. But a posse, their intent clear … it can’t be done.’
‘Are you a coward?’ Trouffant asked softly. Jake shook his head. No, at least he thought not, but to risk his life for someone else’s profit was insane.
‘Courage has nothing to do with it,’ he answered.
‘I think it does,’ Hutch Gleason said. Now with his rough-looking cronies siding him, the big man’s blustering manner had returned. Jake found himself wishing that he had beaten all of the fight out of Hutch the night before. Gleason continued, ‘Kit Blanchard stole some of my finest blood stock - it’s said that he doesn’t stoop to rustling mustangs. I figure I’m out four or five thousand dollars at the least. Now some Mexican vaqueros are astride my Kentucky-bred horses. I won’t stand for it. I want the man dead!’
‘It can’t be done,’ Jake repeated definitely.
‘Oh, it can be,’ Marshal Trouffant said jabbing a stubby finger at Jake Staggs, ‘or there will be at least one horse thief hanged in this town!’
Jake knew what he meant. The nemesis of the Broken T horse he rode still hung over him. He could not explain all about Bert Stiles and how he had cheated him out of his wages. Well, he could have, but these men did not care a whit. Perhaps a judge and jury might listen and understand, but that was too big a risk to take.
‘All right,’ Jake Staggs said quietly. ‘Since it seems I have no choice, we’ll try it. Just tell this man,’ he said nodding toward Hutch Gleason, ‘that I am the one wearing the badge and I am the one in charge.’
‘You’re leaving town?’ Cathy asked in a low voice as she placed a platter of fried potatoes, eggs and sausage in front of Jake. The restaurant was more deserted on this morning than it had been the day before. Only a few men who might or might not have been a part of the posse sat at the scattered tables, drinking coffee or finishing their breakfasts. ‘When will you be back?’ she inquired with a hint of concern in her voice and in her light brown eyes.
‘I doubt that I’ll be coming back,’ Jake answered.
‘Why?’ she asked. Looking around uneasily, she apparently broke a rule when she shifted her skirt and sat down facing Jake, her small hands folded together on the table. ‘Don’t you want …?’
‘It’s not a matter of what I want,’ Jake said. ‘I told you most of it yesterday, but it’s gotten worse. They’re convinced that I have secret knowledge that can guide a posse into Smuggler’s Gulch and capture or kill Kit Blanchard.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘No, I do not.’
‘Then where did the idea come from?’ Cathy said. ‘Oh, I see – from the girl, Sarah Worthy.’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it Kit Blanchard she wants dead – or you?’
‘I don’t think it really matters to her,’ Jake replied.
‘I think she’s sick … and evil!’ Cathy exploded.
Jake answered quietly, ‘I think you’re right.’
His breakfast, as nourishing and necessary as it was, had no taste. Jake waited until he was sure that Cathy Vance was in the restaurant kitchen, plunked down two silver dollars, and left before they could speak again. He had no idea what to tell her and he could not stand seeing the anguish in her eyes.
They were all there waiting for him at the stable. Some men stood outside, a few had already mounted, some were inside the dark structure, saddling their ponies, tightening cinches or adjusting their stirrups. Hutch Gleason stood near the doorway, his face shadowed, his back turned to the brilliant sunlight of the desert morning. The big man said nothing, but after Jake had saddled the buckskin and swung aboard, Gleason shouted to his men.
‘It’s time, boys, let’s get going!’ And despite what Jake had been promised, it was obvious that Gleason saw himself as commander of their small force. They trailed slowly out of town toward the east, the way to the low desert, and suddenly she was there, shouting and waving:
Sarah Worthy in a white dress with red ribbon trimming followed them along the boardwalk for a way, waving a handkerchief and yelling out:
‘Give ’em hell, boys!’
Jake was reminded of his boyhood when he had watched a volunteer Confederate regiment from his home town ride down the street, dozens of young, brave men, crisp in their new gray uniforms, all doomed to die, passing while the band played ‘Dixie’ and ladies with their bright parasols on their shoulders blew kisses.
It was no different; this, too, was a lost cause before it had even begun.
The white sand desert stretched out endlessly to the east, and ahead were only the stony sentinels surrounding the canyon known as Smuggler’s Gulch where twenty armed men waited. Or did not – no one could predict what Kit Blanchard might have done. He was hardly a stupid man, and he might have suspected or had spies who had informed him that a posse had been formed to try assaulting the outlaw stronghold.
It could be that even then as the posse labored its way through blown sand, the white sun glaring down, that Kit Blanchard and his mob were sitting safely somewhere in Mexico in the shade of jacaranda trees, sipping cool drinks while dark-eyed smiling señoritas waited on them.
The wind continued to increase, and glancing to the north Jake saw a dark ominous ridge of brown clouds. They were likely to find themselves in the middle of a hard sandstorm if they could not get to shelter. And there was no shelter. He urged the plodding buckskin on, bowing his head and closing his eyelids to slits. Now all of the riders had pulled their bandanas up over mouth and nose. Each of them could feel the rising hot wind, see the swirl of sand around them and they knew what was coming. In the midst of a hard desert sandstorm, seeing and breathing could become impossible. Horses suffocated, men died.
Hutch Gleason, his face masked with his red kerchief was beside Jake and shouted, ‘Where the hell is this trail? You’re supposed to know the way!’
‘I can’t see it. All of this,’ Jake waved a hand around at the rocky slopes, ‘looks the same, doesn’t it?’
‘I’m glad we followed you,’ Gleason said sarcastically.
‘No one asked you to!’ Jake yelled back.
The wind rose with still greater ferocity. Heavy sand moved past them at a height of fifty feet or more. The white sun went yellow, red and then faded behind the brown sand veil. Jake had the feeling that he was riding alone – he could not even make out the silhouettes of the men beside and behind him. How was he supposed to find the lost trail? His earlier thought, as thin a hope as it was, was that the hoofprints his buckskin horse had left on his first visit to the gorge could be followed; now there was no hope of that as the sand covered all signs of earlier passing.
The wind seemed to lessen. Jake opened his sand-stung eyes enough to find the reason. He was now riding near the base of the boulder-strewn hillrise so that it cut the wind. Something about the terrain seemed familiar, but he could not make a certain determination. The buckskin seemed to want to move more quickly. Its ears were pricked, its hoofs danced across the sand.
‘Is this it?’ Jake asked the animal. ‘Do you remember the way?’
The way to shelter and water and fodder. Perhaps the horse remembered. Jake let the buckskin have its head as he squinted back through the smothering darkness of the sandstorm. Wherever the others were, they were no longer beside him. The buckskin picked its way upward through the rocks, having an instinct for the once-used trail, and for better or worse, Jake Staggs was once again bound for Smuggler’s Gulch alone.
The sandstorm was not going to blow itself out quickly, but as the horse took him higher onto the hill, Jake could see across the brown layer of dust to the far mountains. If there were men below, perhaps following him, he could not tell. Nothing could be discerned but t
he rising rocky ridge above, and below, the endless blanket of moving sand.
The buckskin moved on obstinately, and now Jake believed he recognized the few landmarks that there were himself. A split boulder here, a somehow-familiar mound of red rocks. If this was a good sign or not, he didn’t know – what pleasure could he find in arriving alone once again at the outlaw camp? What would they ask; what could he say? He would be lucky if Kit Blanchard didn’t just gun him down out of hand.
The hot wind did not cease, but the sand did not blow up over the crest of the hills into Smuggler’s Gulch – for that was certainly where he was now. The trickle of the rill, the long stand of ragged Mexican fan palms, the sycamores in the bottom of the canyon, and nestled in a feeder canyon, the stone house. Now what was he to do?
Jake found himself in a place he didn’t wish to be with no place to escape to but somewhere else he did not wish to be.
A man can build strange prisons for himself.
He started toward the house. The buckskin, unaware of its rider’s misery, seemed eager to reach the ranch. There, it knew, was water and hay and a place to shelter from the hot wind. Jake viewed it as a descent into hell, which it likely was. He slowed the buckskin to a walk and made his way through the cottonwood grove, now bleak and arid as the devil winds punished it.
She rushed from the shelter of the trees, threw both hands high and pleaded:
‘Save me, oh, save me!’
Jake halted the uneasy buckskin and gawked as the disheveled blond; Christiana Blanchard came running toward him.
She was breathing hard as she reached the horse, took hold of the bridle and panted, ‘They’re liable to kill me; you must get me away from here.’ Then she looked more closely, recognized Jake Staggs and said as if it made no difference to her, ‘Oh, it’s you.’
‘It’s me,’ Jake was forced to admit. ‘What’s going on here?’ He swung down from the horse not out of politeness, but simply to relieve his cramped leg muscles. She followed him to the same side of the horse and took his hands, much as Sarah had once done, looking up at him in the same panicked way, except that her eyes were deep blue whereas Sarah’s were black as coal.
