Valley of Bones

by Dusty Richards

  * * *

  “He worried about losing his job?” Spencer asked.

  “Sure. When the train gets here, the stage line is gone. But the Tucson to Hayden Ferry will be here until they build a track up there.”

  “And the railroad bought yours?” Spencer laughed hard.

  “They really wanted the telegraph. Four hundred miles of it from Gallup to Hardeeville already strung.”

  “I put in lots of long days on that,” Spencer said.

  “I bet without a train to work off of they’d never got it built in two years,” Chet said.

  “They’d have to go to China to find the labor.”

  “I doubt many Indians would have worked for them.”

  “You’re right. We had over half Navajo laborers. They worked hard stringing it with pride, then they sang and danced at night. It was a friendly place, and we provided transportation back home for them when it was over.”

  “But in two years we’d have been be out of the stage business. We had to sell it. We did the right thing. They wanted the telegraph wire and they paid for it all.”

  “Miguel is going to replace Raphael someday. Jesus has a ranch of his own. Cole has the new one. You figure someday you will buy another one or two?”

  Chet laughed. “For you and Fred?”

  “Right.”

  “Spencer, I am all for it, but that place I sold the Boyds was right on the Mexican border. JD’s Diablo ranch has had problems and may have more. Mexico has revolutions all the time. Border places are risky business. I’d rather have a place higher up than Oracle. That place was ripe to sell. Obviously the buyers had the money. I will find more ranches down the road. But they may be isolated.”

  “I don’t care about that, but I’d appreciate being considered.”

  “If I don’t have more wire to string.”

  “We can do that, too.”

  They climbed on the stage for Benson and the end of the tracks. The trip required an entire day and it was after dark when they found a meal and beds in a hotel.

  In the morning, after breakfast, they rode the new tracks to Lordsburg. Once there they split up. Miguel went to the barrio section of town. Spencer took on the saloons and bars. Chet checked the local law, who knew nothing about Jacobs or his lady but would be on the watch.

  They met at noon and ate off the lunch bar in the Cactus Saloon.

  “No Mexicans I talked to had seen either of them,” Miguel said.

  “Saloons are all sleepy in the a.m., but no one recognized the pictures of him or her as being through here.”

  “Deming and then Mesilla and if they are not there, that will lead us to El Paso.”

  “Jennings told you he lost them in Lordsburg. If Jennings couldn’t find him, I bet he’d skipped out of here.”

  They climbed aboard the eastbound train and it clacked all the way to the next town—Deming. Two days there they found nothing.

  Three days later, after some rail delays like a bridge washout from flash flooding, they reached Mesilla. By this time, Chet had begun to suspect the roadbed construction of the Southern Pacific tracks had much to be desired.

  Chet noted that they’d pile up powdery dirt with slips and teams to make the roadbed. They never watered and packed it. A two-inch rain dissolved their work and the roadbed was gone. Water was scarce out there, but the roadbed needed to be wet and packed to avoid that happening.

  When Chet commented on that, Spencer shook his head. “They want miles of cheap laid tracks but don’t want to hire an expensive water hauler and use some sense.”

  After leaving the train, Miguel had seen and was now talking to a rancher he knew. He came back to where Chet was standing.

  “You learn something?” Chet asked him.

  Miguel nodded.

  “Hank, here, is a rancher who used to have a place in southern Arizona. He won’t spill our secret.”

  “That woman is dealing cards in Eldorado Saloon right now here in Mesilla.”

  “Good. Let’s see what she knows. We will talk again soon, Hank. Sorry, but we’ve been looking all over for them. I will be at the bar in the saloon. Miguel, you and Spencer make it look like you came in for a beer with me.”

  “We can do that.”

  When Chet parted the batwing doors, several customers in the dimly lit saloon looked over to see who came in. Aside from the wagon-wheel lamps set up over the poker table, the place, coming in out the bright light, was like a deep dark cave.

  “What’ll it be, stranger? My name’s Billy.”

  “A draft of beer.”

  “You look good for it. Ten cents, please.”

  “Two of my compadres are coming. Here is a silver dollar.” He placed it on the bar. “When we use it up, tell me and I will put another one up.”

  “Fine. I can count. Your buddies drink beer?”

  “I’m not buying them whiskey.”

  “Okay. No offense.” He set the mug of beer before him.

  Chet hooked his elbows on the bar and studied the redheaded woman as she dealt cards. She wore a very low-cut dress, the tops of her breasts exposed showing acres of freckles. She was not fat, and the green dress looked to be made of silk. Her bare shoulders and skin showing were distractions she probably used to beat the other players at cards. She had a sizeable stack of money in front of her as she laughed and teased the players who looked more interested in her than their hands.

  She lost a hand and grinned big at the winner. “You are a keen player, Hart.”

  Miguel and Spencer came into the room, nodded at Chet, and joined him.

  “That her?” Spencer asked while they lined up for a beer.

  “Best I can tell. Any sign of him?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Are we going to wait for him to show up?”

  “You hear any word he was here?”

  “No, but they knew her. They said, oh yeah, she’s in the Eldorado Saloon dealing pasteboards.”

  “Jacobs may not have stopped here.”

  Miguel nodded. “I asked several if he was here. They shook their heads.”

  “Well, I guess we question her next. Here, finish my beer, too.”

  The next hand was over. Chet stepped out and announced. “This game is over. I am a U.S. Marshal and so are these two men. Ma’am, we are arresting you for bank robbery. Everyone stand up real easy. One wrong move will get you shot. You, too, lady.”

  Indignantly, she said, “This is outrageous. You can’t arrest me.”

  “Do you have any firearms on you? Miguel, check her legs.”

  “All right. I have a small gun concealed on my right leg.”

  Miguel lifted her dress and slip to retrieve it. “Hold still. I need that knife, too.”

  “Any more—”

  Miguel removed a small derringer from her waist.

  “Hell, no—”

  “Where is Jacobs?”

  “I don’t know any Jacobs.”

  “Facing ten years in prison might improve your memory of him.”

  “I didn’t steal a damn thing.” She grasped the front of her dress, drew it up a few inches, and wiggled her butt. “You have nothing on me.”

  “Well, you damn sure don’t have many clothes on, but I do have a federal warrant that will ship you back to Arizona for trial and ten years of hard labor.”

  “I’ll have a lawyer fight it.”

  “You can, but it will do you no good. We have the goods on your involvement with Jacobs in the bank theft, so you will go to trial.”

  Being angry did not work, so she turned sweet. “It is all a mistake. Let’s go to my place and I can entertain the three of you. Men, with my body I can really entertain you.”

  “Tell us where Jacobs went to?”

  “I have no idea who you are talking about.”

  “Take her to jail. Her memory will improve in that hot hell.”

  “Keep the change, gentlemen. Excuse us.”

  They marched the pouty woman to the M
esilla jail and booked her. With a prison matron in a private room, they made her undress and put on a shift. The desk sergeant said she’d be there when they wanted her. Chet could hear her cussing like a sailor while being taken back to a cell. A few days cooking in that oven, and her memory would improve.

  “What next?”

  “We sit and wait until she answers where he went.”

  “Let her sit. Let’s go to El Paso and see what we can learn down there about him,” Spencer said.

  “Fine. We will go by the jail, get the deskman to forward anything she says by wire to us at the Brown Hotel. I’ll leave him a dollar to telegram us.”

  They were in El Paso by dark. Before Miguel and Spencer took off, they made him promise to stay in the hotel and not be exposed while they were gone. They woke him up before midnight.

  “He’s over in Juárez drinking, but the two men I talked to said they could get him back into the states alive for one hundred U.S. dollars.”

  “That is not a bad price. Let’s tear a hundred-dollar bill in two and try it.”

  His men laughed. Miguel said, “I told Spencer if you’d pay it we’d be on our way to cool Prescott in no time.”

  “Lying in that bed soaking wet I am ready to go find my wife and the cool mountains.”

  “We meet them tomorrow at midnight on this side of the border.”

  “Take another day to get back to Mesilla and get her and then have a U.S. Marshal come to Benson and take charge. You guys did great. Here is the hundred. Tear it in half and we will meet them with the other half and a rig that can take all four of us to Mesilla. We’ll get her on the train. I’ll wire the Marshal office in Tucson and tell them when to expect us in Benson.”

  “Whew. I feel cooler already,” Miguel teased.

  The two went and met the men whose plan was to bring Jacobs across the shallow Rio Grande two blocks away from the bridge near midnight.

  Chet hired a man with a surrey for four for twenty-four hours.

  Midnight came and went and no sign of them. At two a.m. Miguel was watching for them while Chet, Spencer, and the driver catnapped slumped in their seats.

  Someone, cussing violently while being dragged through the shallow water, was what was first heard. Before Miguel could wake anyone, Chet, woken by the racket, put his hat on, woke the others, and said, “Keep your guns ready until this is over.”

  Obviously they were bringing Jacobs out of Mexico the hard way and he was resisting all he could.

  From the river one of the men shouted, “Señor. Señor. He was hard to catch and he got away once from us, but we have been coming.”

  Miguel jumped down and helped push him up the steep bank.

  “Thanks. We wondered where you were. Hello, Jacobs, you ready for jail?”

  “I am not Jacobs.”

  Chet struck a torpedo match, and when it flared he smiled at his prisoner. “You will do. We’re going to Tucson, but first we have to pick up your girlfriend in Mesilla.”

  “No! No!”

  “Oh, shut up, or we’ll gag you.”

  Jacobs fell silent.

  Chet gave the two the rest of the hundred-dollar bill and thanked them. Then loaded up and headed for New Mexico, laughing about how they got their prisoner. They put Jacobs in the Mesilla jail and told the jailer they’d get both of them out the next morning to take back to Arizona.

  * * *

  They found her a plainer dress to wear, and she looked ten years older in it than she had when they found her in the card game. Her cursing was no better until Chet said he’d gag her with someone’s dirty sock. She sulked the rest of the way back to Benson.

  A man and a woman from the U.S. Marshal’s office took charge of them at the Benson depot. The guard woman looked tough enough to arrest any man Chet ever knew and the man was a no-nonsense bailiff named Brown who handled criminals in federal court.

  Chet hated the thought that the two Mexican men who delivered Jacobs to them probably got what was left of the bank money. But Jacob was going to pay for his theft and maybe she’d be charged as an accessory. Only judges hated sentencing women to prison unless they murdered their husband or castrated him while he slept. Those were territory crimes and ones the law enforced.

  They’d probably be tried for bank robbery in the federal court in Tucson, so no one would testify. Chet and his men could simply go home and cool off.

  He wired Liz they’d be at Hayden’s Ferry that night. When they drove up, under the stars, to the stage office, everyone was yelling and shouting. A couple of ranch hands started playing their fiddles, a guitar joined in, and soon they were having a barn dance in the middle of the street.

  Liz came, kissed him, and made him dance the set.

  “Whew, you gals are ready to have a real fandango.” Then he gave a loud, “Eeha!”

  They danced some more. He hugged Lisa, and Josey, then Lucinda and four of the ranch wives.

  “It is so good to have you home,” Liz whispered in his ear. Then she hugged him. “I am so glad they didn’t harm you.”

  “So am I, Liz.” Chet answered.

  Lisa came by. “I am so glad you men aren’t even scratched.”

  “I didn’t even get wet dragging Jacobs out of Mexico. Miguel did that,” Chet said, smiling.

  “Did he really drag him out?”

  “Someone had to.”

  “You know he’d go through hell for you.”

  “He does a great job.”

  “Oh, and no one has found those guns you are looking for.”

  “Lisa, we have patience. Things lead to things. We know it was a small thing but a man in a café told us about Jennings and his neighbors rustling folks’ cattle. When we searched, it did turn out he was eating his neighbors’ beef. We also found a Wells Fargo strongbox taken in a murder and robbery. From Jennings, we followed until we found Jacobs. It’s the small things. We will find those guns and Toby’s boys’ killers. They always slip up.”

  “Thanks. And more ranch news. Miguel is getting good at reading, and your wife is a doll. She teaches me a lot every day.”

  “I am glad you like all that work.”

  “Oh, I love it.”

  “Okay, enough talking. We better get to the ranch before the sun comes up.”

  Everyone climbed onto a wagon or buckboard and the ranch bunch sung Mexican ballads all the way home. The singing pleased Chet and the seventy-degree night cleared his head of heat.

  Riding in the second seat, his arm around his wife, he enjoyed the ride home.

  She shook his leg. “I really did miss you.”

  “No more than I missed you. I made as short work of it as I could.”

  “I think they knew you’d solve it despite the cold trail. You do those things.”

  “Boy, it’s going to be hard to pry me off this mountain before fall comes.”

  “Good. But any problem will pry you off by one letter.”

  He kissed her and they laughed.

  * * *

  His men met at the house for breakfast at eight a.m. The girls went all out to cook steaks, baked potatoes, garden-fresh green beans, and yeast rolls with pecan pie,

  Cole joined them. He was laughing about eating supper at dawn, “You guys had a dance in town last night and are having supper this morning.”

  “Do any good water witching while we were gone?”

  “Where Liz said there was water, we got our first artesian well there.”

  “Really?”

  “Cross my heart. It is capped now, but we need more water before we clear the land for farming.”

  Chet noticed Jesus frowning, and asked what was bothering him.

  “I want to know how we are going to find those guns and then the killers.” Jesus said. “We have checked hundreds of rifles while you were gone.”

  “Spread out. I bet this bunch is hiding in some backcountry hideout.”

  “How can we find them?”

  “Maybe go out as work pairs to these places
and look for the rifles there.”

  “Don’t ride a ranch horse, wear old clothing, don’t shave?” Fred asked.

  “All those things. But circle back every week or two. Those rifles are out there.”

  Spencer nodded. “And we need to find them. I think Miguel goes with me and Fred goes with Jesus. Then each pair has someone who speaks fluent Spanish. Good enough?”

  They nodded.

  “Take two days off and then go look,” Chet told them, agreeing with the plan.

  “Who will guard you?”

  “Raphael has some good men he can loan me.”

  “Don’t ride out of the yard without two good men,” Jesus said.

  Chet held up his hands. “I promise. Two good men.”

  They all laughed.

  Chet spent the day working on the books. Cole came by in the late afternoon and they talked about things at Three V’s.

  “The best thing I have is that bookkeeper. How he moves impresses me and remember he came down there to talk to me without crutches.”

  “You found the saddle maker McCully. The guy is like him—all heart and hard work. Now, can we make your place a real ranch?”

  “That’s no problem. It will take a few years and some rain.” Cole smiled. “I want to be like Tom and have the lead sailing ship in the fleet.”

  “Hey, Hampt isn’t slouching. Shawn is coming on fast. Toby and Talley have a head start. I knew it wasn’t going to be paradise, but we are all together.”

  “I will be in the race.”

  “Good. I appreciate you. Val said told me she was glad her husband was back.”

  “I had a plate full. But she is great, and this is almost fun after that job. I want your son to go be with Tye some. Rocky loves horses, and he can learn a lot from Tye growing up.”

  “Neither Tye nor Reg are like my brother. Reg is like his mother May with music. My brother was no great horse trainer like Tye. Different. But I agree, if Rocky wants to be with horses that would work.”

  “Just some visits to start.”

  “I am glad you saw that.”

  “I am enjoying a quieter, less demanding life, but you and I could check out some places when we hear something of guns and men.”

  “I say yes. Let’s go riding.”

  “Be good to ride together again, just don’t shoot the prisoner this time.”

  They both laughed.