by Jory Sherman
“Two bits.”
Ollie put a quarter on the counter. He watched Sam put the bottle back in the well, then drank half of his whiskey, sucking it into his mouth, wallowing it over his teeth before swallowing.Rafer returned and stood opposite Ollie.
“Seen any of my boys around, Sam?”
“Nary. That bad?”
“No, that’s good.”
“You got something cooking?”
“Nope. But I’m gatherin’ firewood.”
Sam laughed. Just then they heard a door open, then the clump of boots on hardwood. A moment later, Roscoe Bender, a cigar stuffed in his jowly face, entered the saloon from the hallway. He wore a Colt Bisley on his belt, up high, and the holster was snugged up next to a long, skinny knife with a hole drilled in the handle that was threaded with a thong. Ollie knew that Roscoe usually had that Arkansas toothpick danglingdown his back, within easy reach if he got into a brawl. He was surprised to see it hanging from his belt in plain sight.
“Here comes Roscoe now,” Sam said, and moved away towardthe sodden patrons at the other end of the bar.
Bender came up next to Ollie, looked him over with jaded, rheumy eyes set back behind high cheekbones like those of some feral animal’s. He puffed on his cigar and blue smoke formed a cloud just over his head.
“Ollie, long time.”
“Yeah.”
“I heard you run into some gold.”
“Some bigmouth tell you that?”
“Birds fly back and forth, from north to south.”
“Roscoe, I got a job for you. Pays in paper or gold.”
“Either way. Spends about the same. Ain’t none of your boys around to do it?”
“Not many of my boys left, and none of ’em here.”
“What you got, Ollie?”
“You’re going to need more than that puny Bisley on your belt.”
Roscoe didn’t glance down at his pistol. He blew a plume of smoke out of the side of his mouth.
“This is my bar gun,” he said. “It’s more of a persuader and does real good up close.”
“Two men on my trail, Roscoe. An old guy and a young whippersnapper. I don’t want them to get any farther than Cheyenne. You’ll have to meet ’em on the trail from Denver.”
“I got two men can do the job.”
“You got to be one of ’em. It’s right important.”
Ollie swallowed the rest of his whiskey.
“You sound real serious, Ollie.”
“I’m serious. The boy’s a fair shot with a Colt. He’s rubbed out some of my boys.”
“What’s your offer, Ollie?”
“A hundred now, and I’ll give you another two hundred when you give me the pistol that young feller’s carryin’. I want proof.”
“Hell, I could just give you a piece of hardware and tell you I done it.”
“This boy’s got a special pistol. Ain’t no other like it. I want it.”
“Sure, Ollie. You’re payin’ more’n anybody around here for a killin’. Hell, for twenty bucks, I could get burials for four men.”
Ollie dug into his pocket and peeled off five twenty-dollar bills. He slipped them to Roscoe below the counter. Bender put the money in his pocket.
“They might be real close behind me, Roscoe,” Ollie said.
“You be around?”
“Goin’ to Fort Laramie. Be here till about four. If you bring me the pistol before then, I’ll pay you off.”
“You want me to go check the trail right now?”
“Right now, Roscoe.”
“All right, Ollie. Another drink?”
Ollie shook his head.
“And you ain’t got time to jaw with me, Roscoe. Take the longest rifle you got is my advice.”
“You ain’t scared, are you, Ollie? And this ain’t the law on your tail?”
“No, I’m not scared and there’s no law on my tail. Just that damned kid and the old geezer. I want their lamps put out permanent.”
“Sure, Ollie. Make like it’s already done.”
Ollie snorted.
“Just bring back that pistol and keep it in the safe for me, Roscoe.”
Roscoe stubbed out his cigar in an ashtray as Ollie walked toward the bat-wing doors. He watched him go outside, then beckoned to Sam.
“I’ll be goin’ out, Sam. You seen Dooley and Kerrigan this mornin’?”
Sam shook his head. But he knew if Roscoe wanted to see those two, somebody was going to wind up dead.
Sam swallowed as Roscoe walked back toward his office. Then he broke out in a clammy sweat that oiled his palms and wet his armpits. His throat went dry and he wanted a drink in the worst way.
“Yep,” he said to himself, “somebody’s sure as hell goin’ to die.”
11
Ben and john turned their horses toward the spring, followingthe tracks and a sign pointing the way. They rode up a draw that branched off in two directions. Another sign pointed to the location of the spring, and again, there were plenty of tracks to show them the way. At the head of the canyon, someonehad erected a stone cairn in the shape of a horseshoe. Insidethe horseshoe, there was a small pond that rippled with flowing water.
“Horses are mighty thirsty,” Ben said. “You been pushing it, Johnny. My canteen’s plumb empty and my butt bones are kickin’ up again.”
“Fill your canteen, Ben, and quit bellyachin’.” John’s eyes were on the tracks and the horse manure scattered around the spring in small piles.
“See!” Ben said. “You’re getting as testy as me.”
“I’m not testy,” John said. “I’m calculating how far behindHobart we are. He and that Delgado woman were at this spring.”
“Maybe. But how long ago?”
“I’ll know in about two minutes,” John said as he swung down from his horse.
He and Ben filled their canteens, then let the horses drink from the low end of the pond where it spilled into a trickling stream that coursed a few yards, then went underground.
John walked around, examining each pile of horse manure. He matched tracks with offal and then went down on one knee. As Ben watched, John picked up a brown nugget from the top of the pile, cracked it in half, and smelled it. Then he touched the insides. He dug lower in the pile and picked up another, one of the first apples to fall. He did the same thing with that one, then stood up.
“Not good enough to eat?” Ben asked.
“Don’t get smart, Ben. You can tell how old a chunk of horseshit is just by feeling how wet it is, how stale it smells.”
“Where’d you learn that?”
“From my pa, only we were tracking deer or elk when he showed me what to do.”
“And what does that horseshit tell you, Johnny?”
“If that’s a smirk on your face, I might not answer you, Ben.”
Ben made a show of straightening his face, wiping the faint smile from his lips and dragging his chin down until he bore a reasonably sober and serious expression on his visage.
“Hell, you can tell from the tracks how long it’s been since they come here,” Ben said. “I know you can do that.”
“I can. But doing this backs up what I already know. And gives me a better line on how much time has passed since Ollie was here.”
Ben took off his hat and scratched his head.
“I say maybe three hours, just lookin’ at the tracks. Not much crumbled dirt in ’em. Mud’s dried some. Three hours. Four at the most.”
“You’re sure, huh, Ben?”
“Reasonably sure.”
John raked a pile of horse apples with his foot, spread them out. There was no steam, the insides were nearly dry. He looked up at the sky, shaded his eyes, raked a glance across the sun’s position, avoiding a look into its fiery, blindingheart.
“I figure closer to six hours, maybe seven. Near a day’s ride to catch up with them.”
“How could they be that far ahead of us?” Ben asked.
“I didn’t see them make
a night camp. They’ve been riding all night.”
“In an all-fired hurry, ain’t he?” Ben asked.
“I was hoping to catch him in Cheyenne and be done with all this,” John said.
Ben walked around, flexing his legs. John heard his knees crack and saw Ben wince. He drank from his canteen, then refilled it. He didn’t know how far they were from Cheyenne, but maybe, he thought, since Ollie and Rosa had ridden all night without any sleep, they might hole up in Cheyenne for a day or so.
“You really think killing Ollie will end it for you, Johnny?” Ben asked, turning to face Savage, who was squatted down, refilling his canteen from the spring again.
“Yeah, I do. Ollie’s the one I want.”
John stood up, corked the wooden canteen, slung it over his saddle horn.
“Will that finish if for you, Johnny? Really?”
“I expect so. Why? You worried about something?”
“Ollie ain’t the only one left out of that killing bunch.”
“I know. If I run across the others, I expect I’ll call ’em out. Mandrake’s one. Who’s the other?”
“Dick Tanner.”
“Yeah. I’m not going to waste time hunting those two. Olliewas the one who called the shots. When he’s down, I’ll ride on through the rest of my life.”
“That won’t end it,” Ben said, his tone solemn.
John shot him a sharp look.
“So you say. What do you know?” John asked.
“Them other two. They’ll be the same as you. They’ll come after you. They’ll want blood for blood.”
“Let ’em come.”
“And if you put them down? What then?”
“That should take care of it, I reckon,” John said.
“You think so, Johnny? Hell, you cut yourself a long trail here. Be somebody after Mandrake and another after Tanner. And then another and another. Ain’t no end to it.”
John snorted.
“You know something, Ben? You just think too damned much.”
“And you don’t think enough. Give it up now, John. Let Hobart go. He’ll meet his own end someday. It don’t have to be you who finishes him off.”
John felt the anger rise in him, as if from some well deep in his bowels licked by flames, the liquid turning to steam. His eyes narrowed and he licked his lips as if to quench the heat beginning to pour from him. He glared at Ben, sucked in a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again to hot, black slits.
“Ben, you’ve been riding me and riding me about all this and I’m plumb fed up with your worrywart mouth and your simple platitudes. You don’t like doing what you’re doing, you can ride off right now, or wait until we get to Cheyenne. Either way suits me. I just want to get shut of you trying to talk me out of hunting down that bastard Hobart and sending him straight to hell with a forty-five slug. I’ve been tolerant of you, but I’m running out of patience and kindliness toward you.”
Ben reacted as if John had come up to him and slapped him backhanded across the face. He froze for a moment and his face blanched. He balled up his fists, then relaxed his fingers, balled them up again, and flexed them back to normal.
“Johnny, you hadn’t ought to have said what you did to me. But you said it and I’m just going to ask you one question beforeI ride on.”
“One question,” John said tightly.
Ben’s eyes blazed with the coals of anger seething inside him.
“You got a conscience, Johnny?”
“What the hell kind of question is that?”
“You heard me. You got a conscience? You have a still, small voice inside you that whispers to you when somethin’ ain’t right and you got to think about doin’ something bad beforeyou do it?”
“I have a conscience, Ben. Yes.”
“I reckon not.”
“Who are you to judge whether I have a conscience or not?”
“Well, that’s all I’ve been to you this whole time. I’m your conscience, Johnny, because you ain’t got one. Now, you want to kick me in the ass and boot me out of your life. Hell, I’m the only conscience you got, son, and if I go, ain’t nobody ner nothin’ to tell you what’s right and what’s wrong.”
There was a long silence between them, a thoughtful silencebefore either man spoke again.
Ben was the first to break.
“All right, Johnny Savage. I’ve said my piece, and you want it like this, I’ll be on my way.”
“Now just a damned minute, Ben.”
Ben hesitated in mid-stride toward his horse.
Dynamite switched his tail and cocked his ears into rigid cones, staring walleyed at the two men. Gent, standing hipshot,lowered his left hind leg and shook his head, his mane rippling against his neck like the fringes on a Kiowa dancer’s buckskin skirt.
“Yeah?” Ben said after several moments had passed.
“I got a conscience.”
Ben waited for more, then shrugged.
“It talkin’ to you now, Johnny?”
“Some, I reckon.”
“And what’s it sayin’?”
John sighed. He looked down at the ground, shook his head as if he was struggling with some inner demons. He raised his head and looked straight at Ben, eyes wide open.
“We’ve been friends a long time, Ben. You probably saved my life up in that cave. I was ready to go down and take on that whole outlaw bunch bare-handed.”
“People forget such things all the time, Johnny.”
“Well, I haven’t forgotten. You’ve stuck with me and I know, in my heart, that most of what you say is well meant and probably good advice.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, Ben. It’s probably all good advice. For somebody else.”
“It’s meant for you, Johnny,” Ben said quietly.
“I know. I know. It’s just that I got this big hole inside me and it’s got teeth and it gnaws at me. It wants me to take full measure of the wrong that man Hobart did to me and my family,and all the others who died up on that placer creek. Damn it, I have to go after Hobart. I want him to look into my eyes and see the pain I’ve been carrying ever since you and I buried all those good people. I want . . .”
“I know what you want, Johnny. I’m mad, too. I want revengesame as you. But remember what I told you.”
“I remember. You said if I want revenge, I better dig two graves.”
“That’s right.”
“If I don’t make Hobart pay for what he did, who does?”
Ben walked over to John and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked John in the eyes with a kindly expression of his own.
“Maybe some things are best left to Fate or Judgment Day. Hell, I don’t know. ‘Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.’ That’s in the Bible. Maybe you got to leave Hobart to the Lord, if you believe in that sort of thing.”
“Do you?”
“Most of the time,” Ben said.
“Well, I’ve been thinking about that, too, Ben.”
“What? Vengeance?”
“That, and other things. Like maybe if there is a God.”
“And?”
“You never see him. Or hear him. And the Indians say he’s the Great Spirit. That fits better in my mind than most of what the fire-and-brimstone preachers say. So, if he’s a spirit, he can’t do anything on his own. I mean he can make grass grow and rivers run, but he can’t come down from Heaven and smite somebody with the jawbone of an ass or anything else.”
“You making some kind of augur here, Johnny?”
“Maybe the Great Spirit uses people to carry out his wishes.” John waited a few seconds. “You think maybe that’s the way it is, Ben?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“And maybe that conscience you talk about is Him telling us when something is right or wrong. But He still lets us choose, doesn’t He?”
“I reckon.”
John smiled.
“See? I’ve been working it all out in my own mind. Surely God do
esn’t want Hobart to get away with murdering so many people. Hell, he’s killed three right here on the road to Cheyenne. God didn’t stop him.”
“Nope, he sure didn’t, did he?”
“So let me go my own way. I made a vow over my pa’s and ma’s graves that I’d avenge their deaths. And Pa left me that pistol. It’s the only thing of his I have. I think he and God, maybe, want me to use it. I took that as a sign. From the Great Spirit, maybe.”
Ben took his hand from John’s shoulder and reared back for another critical look at him. Then, he smiled.
“You know, Johnny,” Ben said, “sometimes you make a lot of sense.”
“You understand what I mean. Why I have to stay on this trail.”
“It’s maybe a danger trail, Johnny.”
“And I’ll ride it out.”
“You want me to go with you?”
“Sure, Ben. I’m sorry I let my temper loose on you a while ago.”
“That’s all right. Let’s ride it then, Johnny, that danger trail.”
Ben went to his horse and climbed up into the saddle. John stepped into his saddle and moved Gent close to Ben.
“One more thing, Ben, about those two graves.”
“Yeah?”
“I dug mine a long time ago, when I put my folks in the ground. So don’t you worry none, hear?”
Ben shivered in the warm sun as Gent stepped out and headed back down to the road. John sat straight and tall in the saddle, like a man who feared nothing nor anyone. Ben loved John in that moment, and he respected him, too, for speaking his own mind and working things out for himself.
Maybe, God willing, that other grave would stay empty a good long time.
12
Two crows strutted along the corral fence, stopping every so often to peck at a kernel of cracked corn or a grain of dusty wheat. They looked like miniature preachers in black sacerdotal garb, the sun glinting on the sheen of their feathers, flashing black and green and blue. A horse in the corral watched them with wide-eyed suspicion as he stood at the feed trough just inside the shaggy cedar poles of the fence. Another horse, its neck arched, head down, slaked its thirst in the water trough, nibbling with rubbery lips, nostrils blowing little waves in the water as if to cool it all down as he drank in the heat of the seething yellow sun.
“Somebody’s comin’, Mitch,” Roy Kerrigan said as he sat in a chair under the shade of the ramshackle porch.
