Mr. St. John

by Loren D. Estleman

  Jim Shirley rested his gun arm at his side, feeling more like a cripple than he had since leaving the military hospital in Florida.

  For the hundredth time George checked the sun’s position, determining for perhaps the tenth time that at least two hours had elapsed since his opening shot. December wind whistled through the pass and up under his coat and shirt. His back was numb under his flannels, both from cold and from standing in the same attitude for too long. Like everyone else of his generation he had a bad back. He envisioned his first week back in civilization lying on his stomach in a hotel bed under a warm moist towel, provided he held out until the last member of the gang was in custody and he collected his pay from St. John. Otherwise it would be a long cold ride East in a baggage car and agony on horseback in Comanche Tom’s show. No, not Tom’s. He had effectively closed the door on that option when he “scalped” the old fraud in front of a tentful of his fans. Another show then, if one would have him. But the season was over, which meant a long dry spell until spring. He decided that he didn’t care. That moment under the lights outside Seminole had been worth it.

  He wrenched his thoughts back to the job at hand, just in time to kick up dirt behind Merle as the fugitive was attempting to make his way back down the pass. So they had figured out that they weren’t surrounded after all. Well, he hadn’t expected the bluff to last any longer than it took to knock the edge off that dangerous panicky moment when a hunted animal is surprised in its natural habitat. George wished that Wild Bill and the Mexicans would hurry.

  The earth at his feet glittered with spent brass cartridges. He reloaded, instinctively counting with his fingers those that remained in his last pocket. Thirteen rounds, one less than two full loads. He had fired around twice. Seven per hour. At this rate he had about two hours left, by which time the others should have arrived.

  The cripple hugging the right wall dropped his gun arm suddenly, startling the Indian into jerking the trigger. He hit the wall just short of Shirley’s face. Shirley pulled back, grit in his eyes. Woman Watching stepped into the open, grasping him by the shoulders to force him into cover.

  George drew a bead on a grassy clump near her right moccasin. Keeping house.

  He was squeezing the trigger when the sun passed from behind a rogue cloud, flashing off the carbine’s front sight. His arm jumped involuntarily, elevating the muzzle a fraction of an inch. Flame squirted. Woman Watching spun and fell and didn’t get up.

  Shirley was still digging dirt out of his eyes when the bullet struck the squaw. The report all but drowned out her gasp, and then there was a sound that reminded him-of the army and baled uniforms landing on the floor of the quartermaster’s shack. Desperately he dragged his sleeve across his eyes. The Cherokee lay on her face at his feet.

  He knew she was dead. He’d seen too many corpses in similar positions to believe otherwise. At first he didn’t know how he felt about it. Then something inside him broke, something that had been a long time mending after his awakening in the field hospital in Cuba. He shoved back the sleeve on his gun arm with the other stump.

  “Jim!” Race was shouting from the cover of his slain horse. “Jim, don’t!”

  Shirley didn’t hear him. There was a roaring in his ears and his face felt hot. His eyes were still watering, blurring the rocks and spindly tree growth. They looked like the steaming jungle terrain around Santiago. The noise of the rifle, still echoing in the distance, resembled the crackling of Spanish Mausers. He stepped away from the wall, raising the Colt.

  “Jim!”

  He fired three times and was swinging his other stump forward for a fourth pull when another puff of smoke erupted at the top of the pass.

  George thought he was having hallucinations. His revulsion over the result of his muffed shot was just taking hold when the cripple abandoned cover, presenting it clear target against the valley behind him as he brought up his short-ranged weapon. The Indian fancied he could hear the bullets plopping to the ground far short of his position. Well, it wasn’t his decision to make. He rubbed the glare off the front sight with a thumb and aimed high, compensating for slope and distance. The Winchester’s butt pushed at his shoulder when the trigger was depressed.

  A fist slammed into Shirley high on his torso, snapping his collarbone in two and emptying his lungs with a whoosh. Another blow followed as his shoulder struck the rock wall. He tried to brace himself against it, but started sliding. He gave up trying halfway down. He died in Cuba, his gun stump stretched out toward Woman Watching as if reaching to grasp a cheap bronze star in fingers long since buried and gone to bones on an island ninety miles off Key West.

  Chapter Thirty

  St. John

  As he pushed his horse nearer its limit, Irons St. John was agonizingly conscious of time passed and opportunity lost. The sun was almost gone, dragging down colorful streamers like bunting at a Democratic Party rally, and he was just approaching the slope that led up to the Hole. The black’s side heaved. Its coat was so streaked with white lather it looked from a distance like a cow pony. Grotesque shadows made a moonscape of the valley, emphasizing the eerie silence.

  He had passed a stray horse two miles back, a big bay saddled and bridled and loaded with gear, but it kept sidling away from him and he had finally given up trying to overtake it. It was a strange animal and he didn’t recognize the gear. If it belonged to one of the Buckners, the old lawman had missed some excitement. The trail he had taken from there had been used within the day. The confusion of horseshoe tracks baffled his limited powers to read sign.

  His mount almost stepped on the carcass lying in shadow. It stumbled back whistling. St. John held his seat. He was pondering the dead horse when a voice hailed him.

  “Speak up or die! This here’s the law talking!”

  The echoes in the valley mocked St. John’s inability to place the source of the challenge, but he knew it had to have come from the summit. “Whoa up, Wild Bill,” he called back. “Shoot me, you don’t get paid.”

  The silence crept back in for a beat. Then the man in the Hole invited him up. St. John dismounted, leading the nervous black around the cold horsemeat.

  Two smaller bundles shared the darkness at the base of the left wall. St. John put on his glasses to examine them. One was a young Indian woman, shot through the heart. The other was a man with no hands and a hole in his upper chest. The earth around him was soaked deep with blood. The bullet had severed a major artery. St. John returned the spectacles to their case in his breast pocket and resumed climbing. His heart was bounding off his breastbone. Missing every fourth beat. He walked through the mist of his own labored breathing.

  Edwards was standing at the top holding his rifle in one hand. His eyes met St. John’s through his thick corrective lenses, then slid down and to his left. An arm in a heavy coat sleeve hung over the top of a tall boulder. George’s Winchester lay on the ground at its base.

  “Ran out of ammunition,” said Edwards. “He was fixing to hold ‘em down till we got here. He done it as long as he could.” His voice broke on the last part.

  St. John didn’t move. “What about the Mexicans?”

  “Behind you.”

  He turned to look. Paco and Diego were incongruous shadows in the thickening dusk halfway down the slope. They had been watching him from behind the rocks and brush that hugged the walls of the pass. They were holding their Mexican Winchesters.

  St. John stepped closer to the boulder and leaned over. George had taken a bullet square in the middle of the forehead.

  “Mauser, I’m thinking,” Edwards said. “He wouldn’t of gave them so clear a shot if he still had cartridges.”

  “Wasn’t a Mauser did that to his face. Not the business end anyway.” The posse chief’s voice was tight.

  “I’m thinking they done that after he was dead. You can see the boot prints by daylight. It was Merle done it. There’s a clear blood trail leading to where George had his horse hobbled. Busted open his wound during the
kicking. That’s how I read it.”

  “Race with him?”

  “Appears that way. They won’t get far, both sitting that little ‘stang of George’s.”

  “Got all the time in the world, seeing as how no one’s chasing them.”

  The words were barbed. Edwards reacted with a tragic face. “It was coming on sundown when we got here, Cap’n.”

  St. John caught him on the point of his chin with a doubled fist and he went down. The sharpshooter’s rifle cartwheeled out of his grasp. Dazed, then furious, Edwards clawed at the Colt in his holster. He was still lying on the ground. Something crunched and St. John’s Peacemaker hovered near his face. He relaxed.

  “I said before you should of told me your problem at the start,” St. John said. “George didn’t die because he ran out of ammunition. He died because you were too blind to come here with him, and the ones killed him are breathing free air right now because you’re too blind to follow. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t put out the rest of your lights right here.”

  They watched each other, Edwards blankly, seeing nothing past his spectacles in the failing light. The wind buzzed between rocks and lifted St. John’s coattails. Behind him Paco and Diego had reached the high ground and stood watching quietly.

  St. John replaced the hammer and put away the gun. “Get a fire going. We pull out first light. First light, if you got to grope your way into the saddle.” He told the Mexicans in rapid Spanish to dig a hole for George.

  Edwards stayed on the ground. “What about Shirley and the woman?”

  “Varmint meat. We’ll turn in his Colt and rig for the reward. I didn’t think to pack the Pinkerton’s camera or I’d take their pictures,” he added acidly.

  “How is he?”

  “Healthier than Testament. The psalm singer’s dead.” He walked away without explaining.

  They buried the Indian under a three-quarter moon and covered the grave with rocks to keep the wolves and coyotes from scratching him up. Standing next to Edwards over the mound, St. John took off his hat.

  “He never did like the outdoors,” he said. “He once told me if it was a choice between the Happy Hunting Ground and a seat in front of a furnace in hell, he’d take hell. But injuns do what’s expected of them.”

  “We’re all serving some kind of sentence,” put in Edwards.

  They moved away, toward the fire. “I shouldn’t of hit you.” St. John fished out his pipe and worn pouch. “Had it to do again I wouldn’t.”

  “He was my friend too.”

  “You read trail?”

  Edwards smiled weakly in the light of the flames. “About as well as I shoot at night.”

  “No matter. They’ll be heading down the Outlaw Trail to Brown’s Hole. No other way for them to go.”

  “That’s better’n two hundred miles. They’ll be stopping for fresh mounts first chance they get.”

  St. John set the tobacco burning with a stick from the fire. “So will we. But at least we’re not under-horsed. We’ll catch up before they make that first stop.” Flipping away the stick, he sat down on the ground puffing clouds of smoke. “Or feed the buzzards trying.”

  They found Merle toward the close of the next day, when a corner of brown corduroy coat caught their attention stirring in the breeze from behind a patch of scrub oak. His face was like clear wax and he had begun to stiffen. His left pant leg was crusted black from thigh to boot.

  “Bled out,” announced St. John. “Four, maybe six hours ago from the feel of him.”

  “Damn decent of his own cousin to give him a Christian burial.” Edwards spat the words.

  “No Christians on the scout.”

  The old lawman unbuttoned the dead man’s coat, found a canvas money belt buckled around his middle and undid that. He opened one of the pouches and began pulling out crumpled bills. “Christ, there must be near ten thousand here.”

  “The others must of buried theirs.”

  Something metallic clicked. St. John turned around, a space ahead of Edwards. Paco and Diego grinned at them over their big Colts.

  They argued over the gringos’ fate. In the end it was caution that saved them. Robbed and left to themselves they were two saddle tramps, nothing more; dead they were martyrs, and white posses would hunt their killers to hell and back. Had not the governor of Texas unleashed los rangeros merely because a pair of Mexicans had dared to lay hands upon one of his fellow gringos?

  They disarmed their prisoners, bound them, unloaded the confiscated weapons, and cast the cartridges and gun belts into the open spaces. They could do without the extra weight. Then they emptied the money belt and divided the bills equally, lastly taking what they needed from their victims’ saddlebags and slapping away their horses before they rode on. They charted a southerly course toward Mexico.

  Camping outside Trinidad, Colorado one week later, they broke out the last of the whiskey and played blackjack with Diego’s frayed and faded pasteboards. The betting grew heavy as the fire burned low, and by midnight Paco was down to his last fifty dollars. He wagered it all on the last hand and lost it when Diego drew eighteen and he went bust. Paco shot his partner while he was raking in the ante. Diego’s eyes went round and he fell face down on top of the money. Paco lifted his head by the hair to collect the bills, wiped the blood off them onto the dead grass, and went through his pockets for the rest. He slept the remain& of the night and left before dawn without bothering to bury or otherwise conceal the body.

  More days passed. The Porfiristas were active when he crossed into Mexico, searching the haciendas and haystacks for bandits. Paco hid in the attic of one of his many cousins to wait for the federates to move on before continuing to Chihuahua. Early on the second morning of his stay, he was dragged from his straw pallet by armed soldiers who marched him with a ragged and barefoot band of sleepy brigands to a bullet-chewed wall in the village square and ordered them to stand two feet apart. They were shot one at a time from right to left, the five rifles sounding in staggered volley like rocks bounding down a ravine. Paco was third. The first bullet tore through his lungs and knocked yellow dust out of the wall behind him. The second struck his thigh, smarting like a blow from a willow branch. He took the third in the chest and didn’t feel the other two.

  The government paid Paco’s cousin two new pesos for delivering an enemy of the Republic.

  St. John managed to work himself free, untie Edwards, and recover their guns and ammunition just as darkness set in and joined Edwards at the fire. The flames were, strictly for warmth, as their provisions had gone the way of their horses and of the Mexicans, who were still heading south. With the cloud cover gone, a black, brittle cold crouched beyond the orange glow. The stars were ice crystals in a frozen sky.

  “There’s a big ranch about twelve miles west,” Edwards volunteered. “Used to belong to a fellow named Harper. We can get us some mounts there tomorrow.”

  The old lawman said nothing. His nose was running and his joints hurt.

  Edwards guessed the reason for his companion’s silence. “It wasn’t your fault, Cap’n. Man’s only got two eyes.”

  “George and Rawlings both warned me about them.” St. John’s eyes were dark-rimmed. His face looked gray in the firelight. “I said I could handle them. That was Deputy Marshal Ike St. John talking. I clean forgot he was dead.”

  “Forget ‘em. They’ll get theirs. Ain’t no such thing as a forty-year-old bandido. Merle there puts us three-quarters of the way to that twenty thousand the Pinkertons promised you.”

  “The hell with the twenty thousand. I want Race.”

  The fire crackled and burned blue. Edwards used a stick to trace a map in the earth, hunkered down so low to see what he was doing that the tip of his hat brim actually touched ground. Hole-in-the-Wall west to Thermopolis, then south through Riverton and Lander and Atlantic City and Rock Springs and past Flaming Gorge across the border into Colorado and Brown’s Hole, then down through Colorado and New Mexico to El P
aso and the Rio Grande with old Mexico beckoning from the other side.

  “It ain’t so bad as it looks,” he told St. John. “A heap of these places stopped being strongholds when the developers came and the outlaws’ friends moved on. They got law till it slops over and makes puddles. A few telephone calls and it’ll be like running game.”

  “That’s the way I want it.” St. John stood up. “Just like hunting an animal. Sleep fast. We got a hike in the morning.”

  Judge Parker came to St. John that night, or rather St. John came to him, in his chambers outside the Fort Smith courtroom, with the portrait of President Cleveland on the wall above the judge’s head. Parker sat behind the desk in his Prince Albert and vest with the gold chain hooked on the front. There was gray in his hair and chin whiskers. His eyes were heavy-lidded, set deep and sleepy-looking. They had led more than one ambitious young attorney into attempting to slip a questionable tactic past his straight, thick nose, only to receive a sharp lecture in American jurisprudence and a promise of a contempt citation if the incident was repeated.

  “St. John, isn’t it?” The soft baritone rode the air in the large room a moment after he had finished speaking. “Yes, sir.”

  How long has it been since we’ve talked?”

  St. John considered. He fought the urge to turn his hat brim around and around in his hands, as he used to do when his father was preparing to reprimand him for some childhood transgression. “Ten years, I reckon,” he ventured. “It’s been that long since you—” He stopped, mortified.

  “Died.” Parker was annoyed. “Use the word, man. You know how I feel about euphemisms in my court. Yes, I’ve been dead ten years. And what have you been doing meanwhile?”

  Hesitantly the old lawman told him, glossing over his marriage and business failures and lingering on his quest for public office, thinking the old federal appointee would be interested in that part of his life. But Parker cut him off with an impatient gesture.