Death at Dark Water

by John D. Nesbitt

  Death at

  Dark Water

  John D. Nesbitt

  LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY

  For Roberto Garcia, compadre.

  NO IDLE THREAT

  The sheriff flicked a glance at Petra and came back to Don Felipe. “I understand that you told Ricardo Vega to stay off your land, otherwise he risked his life.”

  Don Felipe made a dismissive expression. “I felt it necessary to use forceful words, to let him know I was serious, and that’s why I don’t regret it. He hasn’t come back.”

  “But you did make the threat?”

  “Of course I did. Why deny it?” He took another drag from the cigarette.

  “Are you a man of your word?”

  A look of disdain crossed over Don Felipe’s face. He said, “I, sir, am steeped in my honor. I am the master of this rancho which you are now on. I do not toss around my words in vain. And I believe this young Ricardo Vega knows it, and for that he has not come back but rather goes crying to you.”

  The man of the law showed a stirring of dignity himself. “It is well that you have such a high opinion of yourself, but I did not come to chide you for your threat.”

  “Then why do you all take the trouble to come here?”

  “Because,” said the sheriff, “the young man Ricardo Vega is no longer alive….”

  Contents

  Cover Image

  Title Page

  Dedication

  No Idle Threat

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Other Leisure books by John D. Nesbitt:

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  As the buggy approached the first adobe houses on the edge of town, Devon leaned forward and asked in Spanish, “Is this Tinaja?” in Spanish,

  “Sí,” answered the driver.

  Devon sat back in his seat. The ride from the train station had taken nearly a whole day, with very little to break the silence, and he felt as if he had lost track of time and space. If the driver had told him that Tinaja was yet a long ways off, he would not have known the difference. But now he was here.

  He spoke to the driver, still in Spanish. “I have heard that this area has not changed much, that people still do things the way they did in years past.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Good.”

  The driver shrugged. “Very little happens in this place.”

  “That is well enough, also. I hope to find peace and quiet here.”

  The driver nodded but did not answer.

  After several hours of seeing only flat desert plains and far-flung mountains, Devon appreciated details that were close enough to observe. A little girl no older than six stood with a length of jute twine around the neck of a tan goat. The animal, which had a beard hanging down and a pair of horns curving back, looked at him with bulging eyes as he passed. Next he saw a husky man, straw-hatted, leading two gray pack burros. The man had dark features and a bristly mustache, and he carried a switch about a yard long. After that, between two buildings in an empty lot strewn with broken blocks of adobe, two groups of boys stood facing each other. Just before they passed out of sight, Devon saw that the front boy in each group held his arm curled around a rooster. Fighting cocks. The one he saw better had long black tail feathers.

  A water tank made of mortared stone came into view on the left, and as the buggy wheeled past it, Devon looked down into the dark water but saw nothing of shape or form.

  The buggy came to a stop in front of a stuccoed building with a large wooden step. The driver climbed down, waited for his passenger to do the same, and then lifted the two traveling bags from the vehicle. Devon, feeling dazed now that the vehicle had come to a stop and he stood on the ground, stood and watched as the driver carried the bags up onto the wooden step and through the doorway. Devon glanced at the silent people to his right and left, then followed the man with his bags. Just before going through the double door, he looked up and read the sign: Los Ermitaños. The Hermits. It was the only sign he had seen so far in the town, and it served to remind him that everything would be in Spanish from here on out.

  The driver set the bags on the dark tile floor in front of the reception desk, then stood back and lingered. Devon realized the man was waiting for a tip, so, remembering the long trip and the bit of work on each end, he fished out a quarter and thanked the driver. Then he turned his attention toward the tall, dark-featured man behind the counter.

  “In what way may I help you?”

  “I would like a room.”

  “Just one person?”

  “Yes, I am by myself.”

  “Alone. For how many nights?”

  “Several. At least a week.”

  The man paused. “Oh, you are here to visit?”

  “Yes. I am an artist, drawing and painting. I like the solitude and the landscapes.”

  The man’s eyebrows went up. “Oh, there is much of that here.”

  “That is very good.” Devonmotioned with his chin toward the counter. “Do youwishme to sign in? ”

  “No, this is a small inn. We will know you.”

  “And to pay?”

  “When you are ready to leave.”

  Devon drew a five-dollar gold piece from his pocket and laid it on the counter. “Let me give you this as a surety.”

  The man barely looked at it.

  “Do you serve meals?”

  “Oh, yes. Do you care to eat now?”

  “In a little while.”

  “Very well.” The man showed a skeleton key and then hit a bell that gave a loud ping. “Federico will show you to your room.”

  A short, lean man in a dull white shirt appeared. He took the key, lifted the two bags, and walked toward a hallway that led deeper into the building.

  Devon followed, turning when the man did and then taking one slow step at a time as the man banged his way up a stairway. Down another hall that ran parallel to the one below, the man stopped at a door and clacked the key into the lock. He pushed the door open, carried the bags into the room, and set them on a foot rug. Then he stood back half a step.

  “Thank you,” said Devon as he gave the man a dime.

  “At your service.” The man handed him the key, then closed the door behind him as he left.

  Devon crossed the room to the window, pushed the curtains aside, and looked. As the low mountains shimmered in the distance, he thought, this was what he had come for. Vastness, solitude, melancholy—as in the old poems about the country churchyard and the deserted village. Far from the madding crowd’s ignoble strife, where an unseen rose might waste its fragrance on the desert air.

  Two oil lamps had been lit when he entered the small dining room. He sat a table, alone in a quiet place—or almost alone, for as he looked around he saw a painting of the Virgin of Guadalupe with her radiant, shell-like background, and in an unlit corner of the room he saw a pale bird, something like a cockatiel, shifting on its perch in a wire cage.

  The man who had carried his bags to the room appeared with a small, drab towel on his suspended forearm. “Do you care for dinner now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Very well. I will bring it.”

  “Do I have choices?”

  “The cook prepares the meal of the day.”

  From the gender of the noun, Devon imagined a woman with he
r hair in a single braid, stirring a large pot. “That’s fine,” he said.

  A few minutes later, Federico returned with a large steaming bowl. As he set it down, Devon saw chunks of meat and boiled grains of hominy.

  “¿Sopa?” Soup?

  “Pozole.”

  The waiter left. He came back in a minute with a small plate of diced onions, shredded cabbage, and sliced radishes in one hand and a cloth bundle of corn tortillas in the other. He set the things down and stepped back. “Something else?”

  Devon touched the plate of cut-up vegetables.

  “Does this go in the pozole? ”

  “Yes. Do you wish for anything else?”

  “Is there beer?”

  Federico gave a sad look. “No, there isn’t. But if the gentleman wishes, there is a place that dedicates itself to that.” He drew his brows together and nodded. “Not far away.”

  Devon smiled. “After the meal, then.”

  “Anything else for the moment?”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Provecho.” Enjoy your meal.

  Devon stood at the bar and drank a glass of beer. He supposed it was early yet, as only two other men were in the cantina. One of them, the bartender, was a large, round-shouldered man whose left eye twitched. He didn’t say much and stayed at his end of the bar. The other man, not very neatly dressed, was strumming on an instrument very similar to a mandolin and getting settled on a stool against the wall. He had not shaved, or been shaven, for a few days, and his hair hung straight down in the style of a page boy in an old painting. From his movements and his appearance, Devon surmised that the man was blind.

  The cantina was not without its decorations. On one wall hung a pair of heavy spurs with rowels bigger than silver dollars, and on another a rattlesnake skin, six feet long, had been spread out and tacked to a plank. Behind the bar, tied in a coil and hung from an ancient square nail, hung a braided bullwhip.

  Within a little while, a man in a brown corduroy jacket and trousers sauntered into the cantina. He called out a greeting to the barkeeper and took a place a few feet away on Devon’s right. After a smile and a nod to his neighbor, he spoke again to the man behind the bar, who set a bottle of tequila and a small glass on the bar top.

  The man in the brown suit poured himself a shot of liquor and took a small sip. Then he turned to Devon and said, “Buenas tardes.”

  Devon, knowing that tardes stretched into the early evening hours for many people, returned the greeting.

  “Are you visiting here?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Oh, how good.” The man smiled.

  “It is very peaceful here.”

  “Oh, yes. Sometimes awedding, or a baptism, and certain fiestas on saints’ days, but very tranquil.”

  Devon noticed the man’s large, expressive eyes and then his wavy hair and drooping mustache, brown but not very dark. He had a generally handsome look to him, in spite of a rough complexion. Devon took him to be younger than himself, between twenty-five and thirty.

  The blind singer ran through a verse or two and stopped, then took to plucking the strings and tuning his instrument some more.

  Devon’s new acquaintance called out, “Ándale, Juanito, don’t sing only your songs of misery and sadness. Something lighter.” Then he turned to Devon and said, “Do you stay at the inn here?”

  “Yes, at Los Ermitaños. I imagine it’s the only one in the town.”

  The other man gave a short laugh. “Oh, yes. There is only one inn, one cantina, and one church.”

  “Apparently they don’t compete. I asked for beer at the inn, and they told me I had to come here. Even though it was night already and this place has no sign, I found it right away.”

  “It is not hard.”

  “I heard music.”

  The man laughed again. “Even if there is no music, and no laughter, I can find a place like this with my eyes closed.”

  “Especially if it is the only one in town. Does it not have a name?”

  “It is called La Sombra.”

  Shade. Shadow. “For summer days?”

  “Exactly.” Another smile.

  After a moment or two of silence, the man asked, “And do you come here just for the weather, or are you looking for something?”

  “I guess you could say I amlooking for something.”

  “I do not know of any legends of lost treasure nearby here, although men have disappeared into the far mountains.” He gave an appraising glance. “And you do not look like a miner.”

  Devon laughed. “No, I am not, although I like solitude and could imagine wandering the desert with a burro.”

  The man’s eyes opened, and he smiled. “Oh, yes. Very pensive.” After a pause he added, “But are you looking for something that is lost?”

  “Perhaps better put, I am looking for something that is lacking, something I hope to find.”

  “Oh, yes? How interesting.”

  “You see, I like to draw and paint. I am looking for likely subjects to study.”

  “Excellent.”

  “I have heard there are many old buildings in this region, from the early days, off by themselves and alone.”

  “That is what you wish to find?”

  “It is what I would like to study, to contemplate. From that I may discover something that seems to be missing. Within me.”

  “Ah, I understand.”

  Devon wondered if he did, but it didn’t matter very much anyway. The conversation was a pleasant one. “So is it true that there are such places?”

  “Oh, here and there, some of them far away.”

  “How far?”

  “Oof!” The man waved his hand upward.

  “And the closer ones?”

  “Oh, well, there is an old church, fallen in and in ruins now, but in the kind of location you speak of.”

  “Really? And where is it?”

  The man shrugged, as if he were hesitant. “Well, it is on the land of what used to be a large hacienda. Now it is called Rancho Agua Prieta.”

  Dark Water Ranch. “The ranch, that is, where the church is located?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how might I get there, to ask permission? Do you know the owner?”

  Again the shrug. “Well, yes. Actually, the people are relatives of mine. The main road east of town will take you to the ranch, and from there they can tell you how to find the church. If they are not bothered by your asking.”

  “Huh. Are they somewhat difficult?”

  “Oh, no,” came the quick answer. “But it is a large ranch. They have many things to do.”

  “Of course. And the name of the owner? How is he called?”

  “The master of the rancho is Don Felipe Torres. He is the one who gives the orders there.” After a short silence he asked, “Do you have a way to get to the ranch?”

  “Yes, I do. Before I came over here, I spoke with the innkeeper, who referred me to the stableman, and I arranged to have a horse available.”

  “That is good. It would be too far to walk.”

  “And your name?”

  “Carlos Hernández. Asus órdenes.” At your service.

  “Devon Frost. Mucho gusto en conocerte.” A pleasure to meet you. With the formalities and the friendly handshake taken care of, Devon asked, “Shall I tell him I met you?”

  Carlos made a small frown and shook his head. “He is married to my aunt for these several years, but he is a little bit special, and of late he does not receive me very well. So it would be better not to mention me to him. With my aunt and with my cousin, there would be no problem.”

  From the gender of the noun, Devon understood that the cousin was a female. “Very well,” he said with a smile. “All serious with the patrón.”

  “Just as well.” Carlos took a sip of tequila and turned to the blind singer, who had yet to sing his first song. “Ándale, Juanito,” he called, “Sing the song about the peach with the red heart.”

  Juanito
strummed it out and sang in the voice of a man who confessed that he was bad but ate the peach all the same. He ate it all the way to the pit, or hueso. The stone of the peach was called a bone in Spanish, but the words of the song did not create an image of a red bone for Devon. Rather, he imagined he could look into the center of the peach and see its red stone heart. Juanito sang that song and many others.

  Chapter Two

  Rancho Agua Prieta came into view first as a clump of treetops in the distance, then as a cluster of buildings in the midst of a vast plain. As Devon surveyed the country stretching out in all directions, he reflected that at one time the hacienda would have had all of that land and more in its dominion. And even if it had shrunk from a Spanish land grant, the ranch would still be big. Carlos had said “muy grande,” and the headquarters matched that idea.

  Devon followed the road as it led to the main entrance, still half a mile distant. On each side of the gateway stood a stone wall, sloping down from six or seven feet high to about four. He could see now that leading away from each side of the entryway, an adobe wall enclosed the whole compound, high enough to keep out livestock but low enough for a couple of straw-hatted figures to peer over. To the left of the gate, a grove of cottonwoods showed their bushy tops, while to the right, a lower growth of pale green trees, perhaps acacia or locust, refracted the morning sunlight that came down from the far side.

  At about twenty yards from the gate, Devon stopped his horse and dismounted. A dark man in drab clothes and a peaked straw hat came out from behind the stone wall and stood behind the two pole gates where they met in the center.

  “¿Sí, señor?”

  “I would like to speak with the patrón, if it is possible.”

  The man raised his head in a small gesture of challenge. “On the part of whom?”

  “I am an outsider. He doesn’t know me. But I would like to ask him permission for something.”

  “Just a minute.” The man turned to his left, spoke to someone behind the stone wall, and then walked out of view toward the buildings.

  A few minutes later, another man appeared at the gate, loosened the chain in the middle, and stepped into full view. He was a well-built man, above average in height and square-shouldered, with large brown eyes. Wearing a hat of palm fiber with a tighter weave than the first man’s straw hat, he stood straight up with his head tipped back and his left thumb in the pocket of his brown leather vest. He had a toothpick sticking out of the corner of his mouth, and his smile showed a set of large teeth, one of them lined in silver. From the way he carried himself, as well as from his style of dress, Devon took him to be some kind of foreman.