by Braun, Matt;
Some twenty yards farther the trail forked, indicating the poachers had split off in opposite directions. Still there was no sound, and after studying the sign a minute, Hank waved Romero to the left and Mendez to the right. The vaqueros nodded, rifles cradled in their arms, and as they moved out, Hank thumbed the hammer back on his carbine. Suddenly a farmer, dressed in tattered overalls and a straw hat, stepped from behind a tree, threw an old Winchester to his shoulder, and fired. Romero’s horse went down, struck squarely between the eyes, and as he leaped clear of the saddle, Hank shot the farmer. A starburst of blood splattered the farmer’s chest, then his knees buckled and he slumped to the ground.
Almost simultaneously there was a scream from the opposite direction and a figure rose from the brush, swinging a double-barrel shotgun to bear on Hank. Without hesitation, Mendez fired and only then did they see that it was a boy in his late teens. The slug sent him reeling in a limp, nerveless dance; as though his legs had been chopped from beneath him, the boy collapsed and fell spread-eagled in the undergrowth. Romero had scrambled to his feet, and for a long while the three men stared at the body in stunned silence. Then Umberto Mendez crossed himself and his lips moved in a distorted whisper.
“Madre de Dios. A boy, patron. I’ve killed a boy.”
The words jarred Hank out of his funk, and he quickly thrust the carbine back in the scabbard. He motioned Romero forward, but his eyes were fixed on Mendez, and when he spoke his voice was hard, commanding.
“Stay here! Touch nothing and allow no one near this place until I return. Sabe?”
The vaqueros bobbed their heads and Hank watched them with a steady gaze for a moment. Then he reined his horse around and rode off through the brush toward Lairdsville.
* * *
“That’s it, exactly how it happened.”
“You’re certain? There’s no chance Romero or Mendez could have fired first?”
“I told you, the farmer tried for Romero and missed, and I let him have it, then this kid popped up with a shotgun and Mendez fired out of pure reflex. Hell, we didn’t even know he was a kid till he hit the ground. All we saw was that shotgun.”
“And you haven’t any idea who they were?”
“Never saw ‘em before in my life. But they’re sodbusters, one look’ll tell you that.”
“Yes, I’m sure it would.”
Ernest Kruger tilted back in his chair, hands clasped across his chest. His gaze was abstracted, and as Hank paced back and forth in front of the desk, he seemed to fall asleep with his eyes open. But in his mind he carefully scrutinized everything he’d heard, examining it for some hidden danger. It occurred to him that it was fortunate he’d decided to work late tonight; that Hank had seen the light and stopped rather than riding straight to the courthouse. With the sheriff involved, his options would have been few and risky. Even now, with the incident still contained, it would be touch and go for a few days, perhaps longer. Yet it could be done, with no one the wiser, and done in such a way that it could never be traced to Santa Guerra. All of which presupposed he could convince his son to look at the matter in its proper perspective. That remained to be seen.
After long deliberation, Kruger leaned forward, elbows on the desk. His face was a mask and his tone was offhand, almost matter of fact.
“It appears there were no witnesses.”
“Witnesses? What the hell’s that got to do with anything?”
“A good deal. Without witnesses, our position improves enormously.”
“Dad, maybe you weren’t listening. We just killed a couple of people, one of ‘em a kid! Christ, he couldn’t have been more than seventeen, maybe not that.”
“Yes, but they were poachers, caught red-handed.”
“So what’s the point? They’re still dead.”
“The point is quite simple,” Kruger replied. “Without witnesses, who’s to say the killings ever took place?”
Hank stopped pacing, suddenly whirled around. With a jolt he saw that his father was not in the least appalled by the killings. Instead he appeared thoughtful, curiously dispassionate, like a man contemplating some very involved gambit on a chessboard.
“I hope I heard you wrong. You’re not talking about ... keeping this under wraps ... are you?”
“That’s precisely what I’m talking about. Although I think ‘underground’ would be the better term.”
“Goddamn! You’re not serious. You mean, bury them?”
“The deeper, the better. In fact, I suggest that old bog southwest of the creek. I’ve seen it suck whole cows out of sight in three or four minutes.”
Hank was struck dumb, momentarily unnerved by his father’s quiet, cold-blooded manner. Several seconds passed as they stared at each other, then he shook his head, averted his gaze.
“I don’t know whether you’re trying to protect me ... or save yourself some grief ... but forget it. I’ve got nothing to hide. Hell, they’re the ones that fired first, not us! It was self-defense, plain and simple.”
“You might have a difficult time convincing a jury of that. Particularly if it’s a jury comprised of farmers. Consider it a moment ... do you think they’d believe you had to kill the boy—a farm boy?”
“I don’t have to think about it.” Hank rounded the desk, walked directly to the wall phone. “Before this goes any further, I’m going to call the sheriff. We’ll let the law handle it.”
“No!” Kruger’s tone was harsh, roughly insistent. “You won’t call the sheriff and you won’t speak of this matter to anyone else, not even your mother. We have the family name to protect, and even if you weren’t indicted, we’d still never live it down.”
“Like hell!” Hank corrected him. “You’re not worried about me or the family or anyone else. You’re worried about yourself, aren’t you?”
“It’s a little more involved than that. We already have enough enemies, and right now we can’t afford a scandal of this sort. Just take my word for it ... leave well enough alone.”
“It won’t work, Dad. Either forget the slick talk and give me a damn good reason, or I’m calling the sheriff. I mean it, so don’t try horsing me around.”
Their eyes locked, and after a long while Kruger nodded. “Very well, son, the truth. Next year I intend to run for governor. It’s all arranged, and there’s no way I can lose ... unless you call the sheriff.”
“Jesus Christ! You’d put me on the spot for that, your lousy politics?”
“Yes, you’re right. It’s selfish and conniving and you have every reason to be disgusted. But I’ve been aiming toward it for years, and I can do a great deal of good as governor. A great deal of good, both for the family and Texas.” He paused, voice lowered, eyes downcast. “So I’m asking—father to son—don’t spoil it for me.”
Hank studied him for a time, finally looked away. “What about Romero and Mendez ... want me to bury them too?”
“No need for sarcasm,” Kruger observed quietly. “Romero and Mendez won’t talk, not after they’ve killed white men and helped ...”
“Go on, say it. Helped dispose of the bodies, isn’t that what you meant?”
“I’m not proud of it, but I won’t beg favors, not even from my own son. Just give me a straight answer ... will you do it or not?”
“Yeah, I’ll do it,” Hank said in a resigned voice. “But after this we’re quits, all accounts squared. You tend to your business and I’ll tend to mine.”
“I understand, and thank you, son. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, just keep your politics the hell away from Santa Guerra. Savvy?”
Kruger nodded but Hank had already turned away, walking rapidly toward the door. He slammed it on his way out.
Kruger left the hotel shortly before eight in the morning and walked toward the bank. He hadn’t heard from his son in the past two days, which was hardly surprisi
ng under the circumstances. But he was satisfied Hank had kept their bargain. Talk of the missing farmers, now identified as Fred Jackson and his sixteen-year-old son, was all over town. There was a good deal of speculation about their disappearance, yet Kruger was feeling rather sanguine about the whole affair. Talk was cheap, and the Jacksons would never be found.
As he was crossing the street, someone called his name. He turned, saw Lon Hill and another farmer approaching, and immediately gathered himself to face a nasty situation. They both appeared angry, and he recognized the second man as Wendell Jackson, the missing farmer’s brother. Hill began talking in a loud, hectoring voice even before they halted.
“Kruger, we’d like a word with you. We’ve just come from the courthouse, and that mealymouthed sheriff of yours is giving us the runaround.”
“Oh, what’s the problem now?”
“Don’t play dumb, Kruger. You know damn well Fred Jackson and his boy are missin’.”
“Yes, of course.” Kruger glanced at Wendell Jackson. “Sorry to hear it, Mr. Jackson. Any word on them yet?”
“Save your sympathy!” Hill snapped. “We’re after action, and we mean to have it.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“The hell you don’t! We asked that asshole sheriff to form a search party and start combin’ Santa Guerra, and the sonovabitch just flat refused.”
“Why would you expect him to search Santa Guerra?”
“Best damn reason in the world. Go on, Wendell, tell him.”
Wendell Jackson wasn’t a tall man, but his barrel-shaped torso was thickly quilted with muscle. His features were square and brutish, and there was a feral look in his eyes, savagery and homicidal fury in his stance. He’d lost all reason, all restraint, and his fists clenched in hard knots as he struggled to choke out the words.
“My brother and his boy went huntin’ on your place, night before last. They been there lots of times, them signs of yours don’t mean nothin’ to ‘em. But this time they ain’t come back, and I’m done waitin’. I aim to find out what happened.”
“I see, and exactly what is it you think happned, Mr. Jackson?”
Hill grunted sharply. “Same goddamn thing that’s been happenin’ ever since you posted that land. Only this time it got out of hand. We think them greasers of yours killed ‘em. Killed ‘em and buried ‘em, by the Holy Christ!”
Kruger regarded him with great calmness. “Mr. Hill, I can appreciate your concern, but to be quite blunt about it, I think you’re going off half-cocked. My vaqueros don’t kill people ... not even poachers.”
“Then you’ll have no objection to us searchin’ Santa Guerra, will you?”
“That’s entirely up to the sheriff. If he feels there are sufficient grounds to warrant a search—”
“Bullshit! We’re done askin’ him, we’re askin’ you.”
“I repeat, Mr. Hill, my vaqueros don’t engage in violence. So there’s really no reason to pursue the matter further.”
Wendell Jackson’s eyes hooded, and his jaws clenched so tight his lips barely moved. “If nothin’ happened, then how come your boy rode in here hell-for-leather night before last and turned right around and rode back out again? Thought we didn’t know about that, didn’t you?”
“I assure you one has nothing to do with the other. You’re jumping to conclusions, Mr. Jackson. All the wrong conclusions.”
“Fuck you and your conclusions. You just got done tellin’ us what we wanted to know.”
Jackson wheeled away and walked off down the street. Lon Hill started after him, then stopped and turned back. “That was the biggest mistake of your life, Kruger. If you’d played it straight, we might’ve been able to cool him down. The way it sits now, I’d advise you to sleep damn light.”
Hill hurried after his friend and Kruger stood watching them until they turned the corner. All things considered, he thought he’d handled it rather well, but that part about Hank bothered him. On impulse, he decided a trip to the ranch was in order. Probably nothing to worry about, and yet ... it was best to keep Hank apprised of developments.
Hedge the bet, for the boy’s sake. And his own.
Chapter 43
The stars were scattered like flecks of ice through a sky of purest indigo. Hank stood on the creek bank, lost beneath the shadow of the trees, staring intently at the heavens. His eyes roved back and forth, searching the patchwork sky, as though some immutable truth were to be found in the stars. He found instead the quandary of his own thoughts.
Hank had never before examined himself in terms of conventional morality. All his life he’d done pretty much as he pleased, following a loose code of personal conduct that had few limitations. He chased women and attended the cockfights and enjoyed mono a mano brawls in a way others considered a bit unnatural. He had little use for the church and even less for men of the cloth, and the decent, God-fearing people of the area were at once titillated and offended by his disreputable behavior. Yet he’d never welched on a bet or broken his word, and all along the border, even among the rougher element, he was known as a man of staunch integrity. By conventional standards it was a spotty reputation, but he had small regard for the opinion of others. He liked what he was and, by his own assessment, that had always been enough.
Now, forced to look within himself, he found there was less substance than he’d supposed. The last couple of days had been a brutalizing experience; two nights in a row he’d had nightmares about the bog. He saw the farmer rising from the slime, holding his son’s body in his arms, marching step-by-step toward firm ground. In the dream Hank tried to drive him back into the marsh, but the farmer wouldn’t be stopped, advancing with a ghastly smile and empty eye sockets that seemed to glow like dull embers. There the nightmare ended, with Hank jolted awake and bathed in sweat, something vile and putrid lodged in his throat. Afterward there was no sleep, and he lay staring into the dark, filled with loathing for what he’d done.
In retrospect, he saw himself as a weakling. A man of so little character that he couldn’t stand firm before his father’s expediency and obsessive ambition. But if he was haunted by their confrontation in the bank, it was nothing compared to the specter he now envisioned for the future. Earlier tonight his father had arrived at the ranch; ostensibly it was one of his overnight family visits, all quite routine on the surface. Hank thought the timing rather too coincidental, and after his mother had gone to bed he discovered it was even worse than he’d suspected. His father briefly related the encounter that morning with Lon Hill and Wendell Jackson; while concerned, he expressed the opinion that there was no reason for alarm. Still, he’d thought it best to forewarn Hank, strictly as a precautionary measure. In the event the farmers came nosing around the ranch, they were to be shown the gate in no uncertain terms. A hard attitude, he declared, would soon convince them it was a waste of time, and discourage further efforts.
Hank thought otherwise, and he’d forcefully stressed the point. “All you’ve done is stall them. Suppose they bypass the sheriff and take that story to the Rangers ... then what?”
“The Rangers,” Kruger informed him, “wouldn’t come near Santa Guerra unless they’d first cleared it with the governor. I can assure you that won’t happen.”
“Yeah, but what if the papers got hold of it? They could raise a big enough stink. The governor wouldn’t have any choice.”
“Even so, the law requires a corpus delicti, and we haven’t any worries there, have we?”
“No.” Hank paled, remembering. “No worries there.”
“Then it’s merely a matter of sticking to our story and waiting them out. We never saw Jackson or his boy, and that’s that.”
“Maybe, but there’s another angle we ought to think about. The way you told it, Jackson’s brother sounds like a hothead. What if he decides to take matters into his own hands?”
“
An eye for an eye?” Kruger pursed his lips, shrugged. “I considered that, but it’s rather unlikely. Those people respect Lon Hill, and he doesn’t want trouble anymore than we do. By now, he’s got Jackson calmed down and looking at the situation realistically.”
“I don’t know,” Hank countered, “maybe it wouldn’t hurt for you to start carrying a pistol. Just till things blow over. If Jackson jumps you some night, you might be damn glad you’ve got it along.”
Kruger had joshed him for being a worrywart, and shortly afterward went upstairs to bed. The conversation left Hank in a dismal mood, even more disturbed than before, and the very idea of sleep filled him with dread. Once his eyes closed, the farmer would beckon him again to the bog, and he knew he couldn’t handle the nightmare three nights running. He’d gone down to the creek for some heavy thinking.
Yet nothing had been resolved, and now, sickened by what he saw within himself, he realized there were no answers. He’d allowed himself to become enmeshed in a web of guile and treachery, and the time for pulling out was long since past. He was bound to his father in a conspiracy that had no end. In the days ahead there would be lies and more lies, one compounding the other until he was trapped forever in a tangled skein of deception. All his life he would live with those lies, for the terrible thing he’d done could never be undone. A man and a boy lay at the bottom of a muddy bog, and there was no way to raise them from the dead without destroying his father ... and himself.
Hank turned from the creek and walked toward the house.
In the pale starlight Wendell Jackson emerged from the trees bordering the clamshell driveway. He paused for a moment, studying the house, then moved directly to the east end of the veranda. Hidden in the shadows, he stooped and set two five-gallon cans of kerosene on the ground. Uncapping one of the cans, he slowly circled the house, sloshing kerosene on the walls. He was methodical, seemingly in no rush, and when he’d finished, the rear and both sides of the house had been thoroughly drenched.
