Valley of Bones

by Dusty Richards

  “Yes. Good night.”

  * * *

  Over breakfast the next morning they decided what they needed to do.

  “Jesus, Miguel, and Fred, take on the barrio. Spencer and I will talk to the bank examiners.”

  When they parted, he and Spencer went to the bank. A policeman guarded the door.

  “U.S. Marshals,” Spencer said, and showed their badges.

  The man nodded. “I know you. This must be Marshal Byrnes?”

  Chet shook his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Sam Holt. My pleasure. I wish you luck, sir.”

  “We will need it, I fear.”

  Sam nodded.

  Norm Fuller was in charge and greeted them.

  They sat down and he showed them the list of borrowers he considered phony.

  “David Andrews has a bad credit record. Giles Jacobs renewed a loan this guy never paid on in over two years. The interest owed on the past one was probably paid for from the new loan. He has a zero balance in his bank account and received a five-thousand-dollar new loan. His assets are twenty cows. There is no description of them.”

  Chet took out his pocketbook and wrote down, “David Andrew—borrowed $5,000 and owes the bank $7,500. Has twenty cows.”

  Then there was a loan to Andre Michaels for $4,000 secured by his flock of three hundred sheep.

  Fuller said he asked the sheriff to look at his county tax forms. He listed twenty sheep as his herd.

  “The man either lied to the bank or the sheriff, who collects the state tax, said he only claimed twenty sheep on his tax form.”

  “Who’s next?”

  “Maria Cantal who owns a cathouse south of town. She borrowed five thousand dollars to expand her business and he gave her a second mortgage on the property. The first loan is for eight thousand dollars which, I believe, exceeds the value of her house four hundred percent.”

  “I am looking for ways to track him down. We can confront these borrowers and demand they tell what they gave him out of that money.”

  Fuller agreed.

  By noon he had twenty borrowers listed as having seriously bad loans.

  He and Spencer ate lunch talking about it.

  “What about Rowell Jennings?”

  “We need to look at him hard. He wasn’t on the borrowers list we got.”

  “Carter said they were close.”

  “That might tell us a lot, but I figure he won’t tell us a damn thing.”

  Spencer smiled. “What can we arrest him for? A few days in the hoosegow might loosen his tongue.”

  “Let’s work on it. That would be a perfect way to get him to talk.”

  * * *

  The others found them in the lobby mid-afternoon. They had the place to themselves and each one had found out something about Jacobs.

  Jesus began with his. “I talked to some doves. They said he was a frequent user of ladies of the night. He had a few favorites. I interviewed one of them. She said she didn’t know where he went but she missed the money he paid her more than anything else. I named some places he might go and she said he never spoke of them, but she did say he would probably have gone where there were Hispanic whores.”

  Fred agreed. “The women I spoke to said he liked them better than white women.”

  “Did he do this frequently?”

  “Oh yeah.” Miguel said. “From what I heard he really liked them.”

  “No clues to where he went though.”

  They shook their heads.

  “Spencer suggested that if we could pin a crime on Jennings and jail him he might talk to us.”

  “What crime could that be?” Fred asked.

  Chet shook his head. “Carefully, tomorrow, two of you get a look at his operation. I’m going to try to talk to Jacobs’s wife.”

  “Fred, Miguel, and I can do that,” Spencer said. “We’ll get directions to his place while you and Jesus talk to her.”

  “Handle it.” They turned in early and met for breakfast. His other team had a map to Jennings’s ranch.

  Mosel Jacobs lived in a large two-story house on one of Mesa’s broad streets. Mormon founders planned these streets to be wide enough to turn a wagon and team around in the middle of the block. He knocked on the door and a straight-back woman in her thirties, dressed rather upper class, answered the door.

  “My name is Chet Byrnes. I am a U.S. Marshal and I need to ask you some questions.”

  “You want to know more about Mosel?”

  “If you would be so kind.”

  “I guess I owe you that being a federal lawman.”

  “This is one of my men, Jesus Martinez.”

  She had them sit in the formal living room. They turned down her offer to serve them tea.

  “Do you have any idea where he went?”

  “No. I was shocked at the news that he robbed the bank. He never indicated anything was wrong to me. He spoke about plans to expand the bank and increase his deposits.”

  “They say a woman left with him.”

  “I heard that, too. I never heard of her before they said her name. I understand she was a dove and gambler. I couldn’t believe he would do such a thing. We have been happily married for five years.”

  “You had no idea he frequented several such women for their services?”

  “No. He was a good father and husband. I think these are lies people have made up about him.”

  “He never suggested places where he wanted to go?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you. We have others to question.”

  “I am sorry I couldn’t help you more.”

  On the way back to the business section he and Jesus reflected on her words.

  “She lives sheltered from this world around her,” Jesus said. “You couldn’t convince her of his wrongs if they were testified to on a stack of bibles.”

  “I agree, and she couldn’t stand the embarrassment that her husband did that.”

  “Does she have her own wealth to live on like she does now?”

  “Damned if I know. I hope those guys of ours find out more about Jennings than we did from her.”

  “Amen.” Jesus laughed.

  Late that evening, Chet and Jesus waited at the livery for their return. They dropped out of the saddle looking weary.

  “How did it go?”

  “He keeps some doves around. His men are a lazy lot, and he runs some Mexican cattle that looked half-starved on his desert ranch. His neighbors hate him and say he eats their beef.”

  “Wait. They say he eats their beef?”

  “Yes. They can’t catch him rustling, but they are convinced he eats their cattle.”

  “Does he have a stack of hides?”

  “Why?”

  “We once proved a rustling case by finding a neighbor’s branded hide in a criminal’s stack.”

  Jesus nodded. “People stack them up and cash them in when they need money.”

  “How do we find that?”

  “Get a search warrant, and look for a hide brand he does not own.”

  “That would get him in jail,” Fred said.

  “Tomorrow I will find a district judge to issue us a search warrant.”

  “I’d bet ten dollars there is one in that stack,” Spencer said.

  “We will see. Let’s go eat.”

  “I thought you’d never remember we need to do that,” Fred teased.

  Chet clapped him on his shoulder. “I’m hungry, too.”

  “Guys, we are going to get a chance to learn where this guy ran off to.”

  “Yes. His wife wouldn’t tell us anything. Said people were lying about him running around with such women.”

  “That must have been fun.”

  Jesus shook his head. “She doesn’t live in the real world.”

  * * *

  The next day after a meeting with the prosecuting attorney Pat McClure they went before Judge Roger Watkins to seek the search warrant.

  Chet told him that n
eighbors had been complaining about him stealing their beef. “With a search warrant, I think we can find evidence to prosecute him and his foreman.”

  “Marshal Byrnes, I appreciate all the time you spend clearing up crime in this territory. Obviously you expect more than a cowhide to be found there.”

  “I do, sir.”

  “I will sign for it.”

  They went out to eat and Chet felt much better. They had a lead whether Jennings told them what he knew about Jacobs or not. They needed to find some evidence against him. He could only hope it worked.

  Chapter 16

  The quarter moon sat in the east high over Superstition Mountain. In the cooler time of night they rode two by two through the saguaros down the wagon track road. Silent owls and bats swarmed, hunting for prey. They could hear the creak of saddle leathers and the soft plod of hooves on the loose sands, and in spots where the caliche protruded, it sounded louder.

  The dark outline of Jennings’s ranch huddled in an open patch save for some palo verde trees. They left their mounts in a draw and armed with Winchesters strode forward to circle the sleeping headquarters.

  There was lots of starlight and the small moon was still overhead. When Chet felt satisfied he had his men spaced right, he levered a cartridge in his rifle chamber and fired an earsplitting shot in the air.

  “I am a U.S. Marshal. Come out with your hands in the air, and get down on your knees. Any move for a gun and you will die. I have ten men out here armed, with their guns cocked ready to end your life.”

  A few women, scantily dressed, stumbled out the front door screaming, “Don’t shoot.”

  Jesus made them get on their knees.

  Someone burst out a side window. Spencer fired his gun and the man screamed, “I’m hit.”

  “Anyone else want to be shot?”

  Men hurried out the door hands high. The last one out was a big man and Chet knew he had to be Jennings. All of them in their underwear were kneeling in dirt and stickers.

  Fred began handcuffing the men, by the wrist, to each other. Miguel put leg irons on the grumbling Jennings.

  “You ain’t got anything on me. You can’t do this. I’m innocent.”

  Spencer laughed. “You don’t know what we do have on you.”

  Jesus brought the wounded man around and made him sit down. “He isn’t going to die.” Then Jesus went in the house to get something for his wound.

  Chet lifted the first woman to her feet. “Can you two women cook us some breakfast?”

  “Oatmeal?”

  “Make lots of it.” He helped the other one up. “No tricks.”

  “We won’t. What are you going to do to us?”

  “I know no crime you have done. I will provide you transportation to town and twenty dollars apiece.”

  “Oh, God bless you.”

  “Go make oatmeal.” He didn’t need any gratitude from them.

  The wounded prisoner’s arm was wrapped. One at a time the prisoners were taken to dress, come back, and re-chained. Their guns were collected and checked. None bore the numbers they sought.

  With a candle lamp, Chet and Jesus went through the hide piles and found three hides not wearing his brand. Then Jesus moved a pile of junk and spotted a green box. He clamored over to get to it and really fought to get it out. “This box looks like those Wells Fargo boxes stages carry.”

  “Does it have a serial number on it?”

  “It damn sure does. Chet, I am thinking this is from a stage robbery.”

  Chet sat back on his haunches. “This may be the best break so far. I think we have found a real prize.”

  Spencer came into the shed. “Do any good?”

  “Jesus found a Wells Fargo strongbox.”

  “You think it came from a robbery?”

  “Yes.”

  Spencer took off his hat and pounded his leg with it. A smile crossed his face and he shook his head. “By damn, Chet, we are a real fighting force for justice, ain’t we?”

  He and Jesus began laughing. “We damn sure are.”

  With three hides and an empty green Wells Fargo strongbox, they loaded the six men in one rickety farm wagon hitched to a team. He hitched a horse with harness scars to a one-seat rig and told the women it was theirs along with the two gold twenty-dollar coins he had taken from Jennings.

  There wasn’t much else in the place that they wanted or needed. He stepped in the stirrup, swung his leg over, then lifted the roan’s head. With a nod to Fred on the wagon seat, he said, “Let’s deliver them to Mesa.”

  “Get up.” Fred flicked the lines and the team started out. The iron rims were crushing the ground.

  The creosote smell of the desert rode strong in Chet’s nose. Tired with some stiffness between his shoulders, he had accomplished one goal, but where in the hell was Jacobs?

  Chapter 17

  The reporters had left the sheriff’s sub-office in Mesa. The six prisoners had been booked for rustling and they waited for the verification telegram of the strongbox serial number from the Wells Fargo headquarters in San Francisco. Prosecutor Pat McClure was confident the Fargo report would convict Jennings and his men of a stage robbery and which one.

  No wire came. They went to supper and then to bed. The next day the wire came through that the stage robbery happened the year before on the Mesa to Globe run; two passengers, the guard, and the driver were murdered. Wells Fargo would pay Chet’s men a two-thousand-dollar reward for settling the case.

  Chet walked back in the jail. “Jennings, where’s Jacobs at?”

  “Damned if I know. The sumbitch owes me money.”

  “How is that?”

  “He promised me a thousand dollars. He never did pay me.”

  “You got him out of here?”

  Jennings had ahold of the bars with both hands and nodded his bearded face. “That was the deal.”

  “To where?”

  “Lordsburg.”

  “Where did he go from there?”

  “How should I know? One minute he and that witch were here, the next they had disappeared.”

  “It ain’t that big a place.” Chet shook his head.

  “You can have my money when you find him.”

  “Thanks. I will.”

  “Hire me a lawyer. You got more ranches than I got fingers. You can afford it.”

  Jesus smiled as Chet walked by him going out of the jail. “Lordsburg.”

  “That’s where he lost them.”

  “We have us a trail?”

  “Worth going to look.”

  “All of us need to go?”

  Chet shook his head. “No. Jesus, your wife needs you.”

  “She could.”

  “Fred, how’s yours?”

  He shrugged. “I’m sure she’s okay.”

  “Spencer? Lucinda needs you?”

  “I could go home or go with you.”

  “Miguel?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Jesus and Fred, take the horses home. Spencer, Miguel, and I will go to Lordsburg.”

  They nodded.

  “In the morning we will ride over to Hayden’s Ferry and catch the stage to Tucson.”

  “So at noon Jesus and I ride home?” Fred asked.

  “To Josey. She’ll be as glad to see you as Anita will be to see Jesus. I asked all of you down to Mesa. We found a lead on Jacobs and so now I want you at headquarters while I am away. Both of you are two of my best men. We don’t need five of us away just in case something happens. And you might hear leads on the men who killed Toby’s two boys.”

  Fred shrugged. “I want to do my part.”

  “You both do your parts.”

  “Fred, our wives will appreciate it. Both are facing having a baby and Chet knows all about pregnancy and wives. I understand, but someone does need to support the ranches. And as he said, we may even find leads on those rifles or the killers,” said Jesus.

  “Okay. I’m fine with going.”

  “Good,” Che
t said. “We have photographs of Jacobs and the woman so if he was around Lordsburg, we may find where he went from there. The end of the tracks should be close to Benson by this time. He may have gone to Silver City, but I bet he went to Mexico at El Paso.”

  “Safer for a wanted man,” Spencer said.

  “But Mexico’s bad guys prey on gringos who have money.”

  “Right, and they do it quickly,” Jesus said.

  “Well, we got this case after he got far away. All we can do is follow his route from there to wherever.”

  “Let’s get some sleep. Breakfast at six a.m., and get going quickly.”

  * * *

  That evening he wrote Liz:

  I am sending Jesus and Fred home tomorrow. They both have expectant wives. We only need a few of us here. We need to find the killers of Toby’s men. Find the stolen rifles. There are lots of things that need to be done. Make sure to share any concerns with the two. My choice was based on the wives who needed them the most. We are off to Texas to find Jacobs before we can return home.

  Your loving husband, Chet

  They parted at the Ferry. Fred and Jesus, with all the saddle stock plus packhorses, rode north on a two and a half day’s ride to home. Chet and the other two took the Tucson stage south. He planned on the eastbound one and was promised a train ride to Lordsburg from east of Benson.

  While in Tucson laying over for the stage, one of the superintendents spoke to Chet. “We heard you sold your stage line to the railroad.”

  “I was a partner in it. They wanted the telegraph to start with and if they continue with the rails we’d have had to sell the stage at an auction and who would need coaches and horses? So we sold it to them.”

  “The train gets here, they will lay off some of us supervisors. They won’t need us. You were lucky to sell it to the destroyers before they got here.”

  “They’ll still need supervisors. I bet they’ll need people that can manage their business.”

  “I never thought like that. I may sign up with them.”

  “Who else knows the people better? Who around here knows about handling travel?”

  “Thanks, Chet.”

  “I bet you find a place to land.”

  “You have any ranch hand jobs?”

  “I might.”

  They laughed.