“What does cruces mean?” she frowned.
“Spanish for crossings.”
“Across the Rio Grande?”
“Who knows? Across the river, across the mountains. The Spanish gave everything names. It don’t much matter.” Floyd went back to chewing his jerky, extracting all the nourishment the dried beef offered. His eyes habitually roamed the barren land as his jaw worked steadily. A heat haze was dancing off to the west, the pale sand shimmering and causing the cactus to weave and disappear for seconds on end.
“How did the Sonora Kid really get his hook?”
Floyd laughed. “You’ve heard him tell it.”
Sophie remembered the Kid sprawled out drunk by a campfire, spinning yarns as easily as he could make a lariat dance in loops around his feet. Each time the story grew more fantastic. “Yes, I’ve heard them, but I’ve never heard the real one.”
Floyd’s face dissolved into wrinkles as he grinned. He looked at her earnest expression then turned his head away. “I’ll tell you, but don’t ever let him know I did.” His eyes watched the desert as his fingers handled the familiar task of building a cigarette. “A long time ago, him and me were partners. Not very good ones. We couldn’t make a living at being outlaws.” He paused to lick and stick the cigarette paper down, then examined his handiwork and stuck it in his mouth. He fished for a match then cupped his hands around the flame as he drew down the first lungful of smoke. After he jetted the smoke at the sky he picked a stray sliver of tobacco from his tongue and wiped it on his jeans. Sophie was hugging her legs now, chin resting on her knees as she waited.
“We were just bits of kids, about seventeen, learning the trade you might say. At that time we were living in Jasper on the eastern side of the San Juan Mountains up in Colorado. After I’d met the Kid he took me home. Lived with his ma. His pa was dead so it was up to him to put the food on the table. Anyhow, we were going through a real bad patch and his ma was nagging him, you know, so me and him, we took a job at the lumber mill.”
Floyd laughed a dry rattle. “First honest job either of us had ever had. Last one too. It was murder, manhandling and pushing timber into a buzz saw time and time again, shaping it down into planks. Well, one day me and the Kid were jawing, the Kid mostly, telling me his dreams of going back to Mexico and buying a big ranch in Sonora. How we’d shoot out all the Apaches down there and then breed the finest horses ever to run on four legs. While he was talking his hand slipped and went through the saw.”
“Oh God,” Sophie winced.
Even Floyd made a face at the memory. “It was still hanging on by some skin so we wrapped his arm up in a burlap sack and I took him home. We walked in the door and he said quite calmly, ‘Hey Mama, I’ve cut off my hand.’ Without even blinking she told him to sit down. She didn’t look at it, she just gave him a bottle of whiskey and told him to drink it while she stoked up the fire. When the bottle was empty and he was good and drunk she just took the bottle off him and walked behind his chair. Without a word she smashed it over the back of his head. He went out cold. Then quiet as you like she unwrapped the blood-soaked sack and used a carving knife to cut off what was left of his hand. After she threw it in the fire she trimmed his stump and then took hold of a red-hot flatiron and pressed it on the end. You never smelt anything like it. Like burning pork. Anyhow, it worked. Sealed it up good.”
He relit his cigarette, which had gone out while he had been talking. “I went back to the mill and he spent the next couple of weeks in bed guzzling whiskey. His ma made him a leather boot that she shrank so it was a tight fit on the stump. One night she asked me for a dollar and the next time she came home, she’d had the smith make a steel hook that fit real snug into the end of the leather boot. When the Kid asked what the hook was for she told him it was so’s he could still pull the wood into the buzz saw at the mill. The Kid laughed like he’d gone crazy. It was kinda spooky. But we never went back to that mill.”
“That’s some story,” Sophie commented. “It’s better than all that bull about grizzly bears and mountain lions.”
“You bet,” Floyd agreed, coming to his feet and cursorily brushing at the seat of his pants. “That’s some tough hombre.”
“Yes,” she said.
Floyd sniffed then whistled for his horse. He turned to her with a grin. “Well, little lady, let’s go find him.”
***
The sun-dried main street of San Pedro was iron hard, dust devils rising from the flat heels of the two men in tight gray suits and derby hats as they came to stand by the hitching rail. One of the men leaned forward to rest his carpetbag on the boardwalk, then glanced back at the stagecoach that was still being unloaded further along the street. One look at the stiff springs reminded his back of the punishing ride from Alameda.
“I ache all over,” he complained.
“This is the bank, all right,” his partner said, his sharp eyes picking out the fresh bullet holes and splintered wood that hadn’t yet weathered. He turned to see the other man leaning backwards, hands on hips to flex his spine. “I joined the Agency because I like traveling. Stages never bother me, but I prefer the railroad.”
“Me too. The sooner these iron rails reach every one of these godforsaken dust holes the better.”
“Yeah, well let’s get to it. See if we can find someone who knows what happened.” They had already made the sheriff’s office their first call but there had been nobody home. “We’ll try the saloon.”
The dim interior was a sharp contrast to the glare of the street. They went to stand at the bar among the hard core of drinkers, soaking the dust from their throats. While the first man waited to catch the barkeep’s eye, the man with the backache surveyed the room. When their beer arrived he motioned to a heavy-set man sitting at a corner table with his arm in a sling. As he shifted in his seat a splinter of light was reflected from a tin star on his chest.
“Looks like he might know.”
“Unless it was his wife who sat on his arm. If she’s anywhere near as heavy as him she could bust it easy.”
They collected their drinks and ambled over. The fat man regarded them with suspicion then settled back in his chair.
“You know who we are?”
“Guess so.”
“We’re looking for the sheriff.”
The fat man drained his shot glass then stared at it. “Well you ain’t found him. I’m a deputy.” The first man noted the empty glass and motioned to the bartender for a refill. The fat man visibly relaxed and smiled. “Sheriff’s at home, sleeping.”
“You been busy ’round here?” the man with the backache asked.
“Bank was nearly robbed the other day. The sheriff took out a posse. Just got back this morning.”
“You said nearly robbed?”
“Yeah.” He grinned with satisfaction. “We fought ’em off. Killed two of ’em as well.”
The men in the gray suits raised their eyebrows, pretending they were impressed. They weren’t. They had heard of too many towns where two or three outlaws had been cornered by a hundred well-armed citizens who later got cocky because they had protected their town. What else did they expect?
“You saw these outlaws?”
With the fresh infusion of liquor, courage flooded into the fat man’s slack jowls. “Sure did. One of them buzzards shot me in the arm.” He motioned to his sling as if they hadn’t seen it. “If’n I see him again five’ll getcha ten I’ll blow his goddam head off.”
“Any of these among them?” the man with the backache asked as he placed a handful of flyers on the table.
The fat man used his good hand to go through them. “This one. He was waiting with their horses. We got him.” He put the flyer to one side. “And him. He got his when he was running out of the bank. This one was there too, and that one. He’s the one that shot me, dammit.”
The first man studied the pictures and made a face at his colleague. “Charlie Simpson and Jake Morrow dead. Floyd Benson and Jody Mackinaw st
ill alive.”
The fat man nodded, confirming his choices.
“Posse have any luck?”
“Naw. Sheriff trailed ’em south then lost ’em somewhere near Canyon Pintado. By then he figured seeing as how they didn’t get nothing anyway and we’d already killed two of ’em, it was a waste of time.”
The first man spread a map on the table. “Canyon Pintado.” He jabbed a finger at the yellowed paper. His partner took a look and then nodded his agreement. “You’ve been a great help, Mr.…”
“Calderwood. Deputy Calderwood.”
“Mr. Calderwood. Tell me, is there anywhere we can get a good meal and buy some horses?”
The fat man smiled then made some suggestions. The two men in the gray suits picked up their carpetbags and stood up. On their way past the bar they spoke to the barkeep who nodded then carried over a fresh bottle of whiskey to the deputy’s table.
The fat man poured a shot from the new bottle then raised his glass towards the still swinging batwing doors where the two men had disappeared.
“Good hunting,” he said, then tipped the fiery liquor down his throat. “Better you than me.”
***
Dawn began to spill its first trickle of light over the windowsill to dribble down onto the dusty floor where a pair of hand-tooled Mexican vaquero boots, complete with oversize espuelos, California rowelled spurs, stood just underneath the overhang of a patchwork blanket.
The bed the boots were under creaked mournfully, protesting at the weight and gyrations it had suffered throughout the night. After a moment’s silence two bare feet, brown as coffee appeared, the chipped red varnish of the toenails swaying an inch above the floor.
“Hey, where you go, querida, my ladylove?” a coarse voice asked sleepily.
The woman giggled, tossing the long tangle of her jet-black hair over her shoulders. “To wash your sweat from me. You have made me dirty all over. I have never known a man who takes as long as you over a little loving.”
The man laughed a throaty chuckle at her affirmation of his prowess. As she stood up he stretched across the bed and swung his hand. It landed with a resounding slap on her fat buttocks. “Ah yes, my little rose of the desert, but you enjoyed every minute of it.”
She made a face and jumped quickly away from the bed. From where he lay, the man’s eyes roamed over her naked body as she walked away.
Big, she was, like a woman should be. Plenty of fat to get a hold on when the earth was moving, and plenty to keep a man warm and scare away the chills of the desert night. Brown too. He liked them brown. It was more natural. She was Mexican like him and he preferred his own kind. Those white women up north. Bah! Like little animals who had never felt the sun on their bodies, their ribs sticking through their pale skin like a rabbit’s when they took off their clothes. Mexican women weren’t coy; they knew what it was all about, no pretending. They knew what to do and when to do it, and most of all they did it well. A man left their bed satisfied.
“Hey, preciosidad, my precious beauty, what is for breakfast?”
She grunted as she soaped her heavy breasts at the washstand. “You men. All you think about is your fat bellies.”
He chuckled and patted the bed beside him. “Hey, come back to bed and I will forget all about breakfast, my bello Mexican lady…”
She put her hands on her hips so her jutting breasts swung. “You pig. If it is not your belly, it is your pico!”
He laughed again, then stretched, running his steel hook through the maze of hair on his chest. With a sigh he let his eyes stray from her to the window. It was fine again.
Ah, another day.
CHAPTER 5
April 8th, 1884
Las Cruces, Donna Ana County, New Mexico Territory
Solomon Creech reined in the black stallion and rested his hands on the saddle horn. The horse was tired and thirsty, head hanging as it dilated its nostrils to sweep the air currents, seeking the scent of water. Now that it had stopped moving, the flies had begun to move in closer. Its tail switched without much hope of beating them off. Behind, the packhorse was facing the same attack.
Creech looked out over the town with a certain amount of satisfaction. It had taken a long ride to get where he was. The last months had been frustrating. Since he had caught up with Jack Keble in Steamboat Springs, he had suffered a bad run, only one two-bit desperado with a bare fifty dollars on his head. The man had been a coward too, crawling and sniveling when the time had come to meet his Maker.
Creech couldn’t remember a year when he’d had such a lean spell. It wasn’t that there were any less outlaws, just that he wasn’t catching them. Secretly, he blamed the woman. What had she been called? Mary? If he hadn’t succumbed to the devil tempting him through her flesh, then none of this would have happened. He had his heart set on cleaning out the Benson gang. They were like a nest of vipers, poisoning everything they touched, like the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Ridding the land of them would be akin to Jesus turning the moneychangers out of the temple in Jerusalem. This time it would be him, Solomon Creech, who would be the instrument of the Lord, doing the good work he had been set down on earth to accomplish.
But up to now he hadn’t caught up with them.
Lately, every lead seemed to have dried up. He had heard of the attempted robbery at San Pedro but his investigations had got little further. According to the report he had gleaned, Benson and Mackinaw had been there but had got away, and Morrow and Simpson had been shot down. That angered him—to be denied their execution. But there were two others from the original gang that had pulled the Prowers County robbery—Emmett Green and the Sonora Kid. At present he had turned up nothing on Green, but the grapevine had it the Kid was working out of Las Cruces.
That’s why he was here. To bring the Kid face-to-face with his Maker to atone for his sins.
Solomon Creech had been to Las Cruces before. He tried to remember, ’76? That would be about right. No, it was ’77, the year after the Custer massacre on the Little Bighorn. Damn Indians. This time the trail behind him had taken him too near them for his liking. He had followed the old post route from Colorado right down to Roswell in the Pecos Valley, then along the Rio Hondo to Fort Stanton where he had turned south through the Mescalero Nation in the Sierra Blanca. Then had come the flat country before he crossed the San Andres Mountains at Organ, and now he had reached his goal.
If there was one thing he hated more than the ignorant savages who called themselves Indians, it was Mexicans. And Las Cruces was full of them. It was the legacy of border towns. That was why he detested them, but he liked them too. For a man in his profession, border towns represented money in the bank. They were often full of men running from their pasts, men with a price on their heads. Sinners to be saved. And Solomon Creech, if the price was right, was just the man to save them.
So, if the man he sought wasn’t there, then perhaps there would be others in dire need of his ministrations. He glanced down at his black suit. A thick coating of alkali dust had transformed it into a patchy gray. He would have to take care of that as soon as he reached town. Even if he spent half his life on the trail, there was no need to look as though he did. He took off his hat and swiped at his thighs but was soon coughing from the dust.
When the spasm died away he felt in his pocket for the comfort of his Bible. Just touching the worn leather provided solace, a peace that enveloped his heart and reassurance that he trod the Christian path through life.
As his gaze rested on the sprawl of buildings named Las Cruces, a shaft of sunlight seemed to spear out of the sky, pointing like an arrow down on the town. Solomon Creech squinted, fearing his eyes were playing tricks.
There was nothing there.
He waited. As abruptly as it appeared the first time, it came again. This time his frown disappeared to be replaced by a smile. It could only be a sign. A sign from the Lord himself who had reached out His hand, His heavenly finger pointing out Las Cruces for the benefit of His
loyal servant, Solomon Creech.
The man in black lifted his eyes to the burning sky, a joy in his heart. Thanks be to the Lord… Still smiling, he nudged the stallion forward, back onto the trail, and it seemed that even the tired horse’s stride was lighter. He patted the black’s neck and cleared his throat before raising his voice in song.
“Rock of Ages, cleft for me,
Let me hide myself in thee.
Let the water and the blood,
From thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin and double cure,
Cleanse me from its guilt and power…”
***
“Tell me, what the hell made you take this job to begin with?” the first man asked, taking off his derby hat as he made himself comfortable in the railroad car. It was first class, a little luxury he allowed himself. If it meant skimping on hotels so he could ride in a comfortable seat, then he skimped every time. But even these seats weren’t soft enough for his partner. First it had been backache from riding the stage, now it was a sore ass from riding a horse.
“I just love to travel, that’s all,” the second man said testily. “I can’t help it if we get a lead from a fat deputy in San Pedro and we go riding all over the damn desert from here to nowhere and we come up empty-handed, just like that posse did.”
The first man glowered. “Don’t you compare me to a posse.”
“Hell, I know. We’re professionals.”
The first man winced. “I’m a professional. You’re a professional hypochondriac.”
The man with the sore ass frowned. “That’s a new one, even for you. For the benefit of those less educated than yourself, what the hell’s a hypo-whatsit when it’s all there?”
The first man looked out of the window as the train pulled out of the depot. “Somebody who always thinks they’re sick.”
The second man laughed, twisting on the seat to ease the pain in his buttocks. “Oh, I’m sick all right, sick of living night and day with a man who’s supposed to be working with me, but who never tells me nothing. I don’t even know what was in that wire. You just said get on the train. Me, I didn’t even know they had a railroad through Santa Rosa.” He snorted. “Come to that I didn’t even know there was a place called Santa Rosa until we rode into it. I thought it had to be a mirage.”
Desperadoes Page 4
