Wife Stealer

by F. M. Parker

  In the midday sun and far behind on the road, two plumes of yellow dust rose in the air. At the base of the dust were the dark silhouettes of horsemen. From the size of the dust columns, she knew the riders were running their mounts. It could only be Lester, and her father wanting his horse back. She was shocked. How could they be so close? Surely they had seen her, just as easily as she had seen them.

  Maude drummed her heels on Red's flanks. "Now, Red, run like you've never run before. Do it for Maude."

  She held the reins lightly, letting Red set his own swift pace. The men could not catch her now that she had seen them, but how had they been able to track her among all the other horse tracks on the road. The answer came to her with a jarring remembrance. Simon valued the horse highly and always feared someone would steal him. One day several years before she had gone with him to the blacksmith to have new shoes put on the horse. To make the tracking of the horse easy in the event he was stolen, the blacksmith had, at her father's direction, made distinctive marks in the iron of the shoes. Her father must have continued the practice. Thus the animal's imprints could be easily identified from all others. She should have thought of that. Too late now.

  She looked behind. To her surprise, the two riders were gaining on her. To overtake Red, they must have fresh, rested horses. And she knew where they had obtained them, from the Arroyo Calero Ranch only a few miles to the rear. Red had gone many miles, and now would have to run a race like he had never run before.

  TWENTY FIVE

  Ben was ten miles west of Sierra Blanca when he saw the apparition coming along the road toward him.

  The hot air fuming up from the sunbaked land in quivering waves was distorting a distant horse and rider, creating a spectral creature detached from sound and gravity. The horse had no legs and seemed to be floating in Ben's direction on a shimmering lake of water. The body of the rider was cut into two pieces, a thin middle slice missing, and the remainder bent into a grotesque form.

  Ben had journeyed on the main traveled road that led westerly, and was now in the Texas hill country. His way had taken him through the town of Big Springs, then Pecos on the river by the same name, onward past the Apache Mountains, and across the broad valley called Salt Flat.

  The land had grown ever drier, becoming almost desert like. Hills and small mountains jutted up unexpectedly. The grass was shorter and sparse and cactus was intermingled with it. The useless creosote bush was present. Farming had given way to cattle ranching.

  The horseman was drawing steadily closer. The distortion of the man and horse caused by the heat waves was less, and now Ben could see the rider was running his mount. Damn fool thing to do on such a scorching day. To Ben's surprise, two additional horsemen became visible on the road far back behind the first one.

  The nearer rider halted his horse abruptly as if he had just spotted Ben ahead. He sat his mount for a few seconds staring. Then he looked behind at the two riders closing on him.

  He turned quickly back to the front and came on along the road. He was leaning far forward close to the head of the horse as if talking to the animal. Even at the distance of some several hundred yards, Ben could see the horse was laboring heavily with faltering steps. The sad beast was ready to collapse. Ben's anger rose at the cruelty to the animal.

  The rider climbed down from the back of the horse. He staggered and caught hold of the stirrup to steady himself. Then he came slowly ahead leading his mount.

  The man and horse drew within a few hundred feet of Ben. The rider raised a hand to him as if asking for help. At that moment, Ben saw the rider was a woman dressed as a man.

  "Help me!" the woman cried.

  "Damnation," Ben said. He sent Brutus running ahead.

  The woman and her sweat-lathered mount came to a wobbly halt as Brutus stopped in front of them. The horse splayed its legs to keep from falling and its head sank to almost touch the ground. Blood and froth dripped from his flaring nostrils.

  The woman stared at Ben with eyes edged with red and sunk deeply in her dusty, haggard face. Immediately a pleasure-filled flood of recognition swept over her.

  "Ben, Ben Hawkins, it's you. Thank God."

  "What the hell?" Ben said, disbelieving what he saw. He slid from the saddle and went closer to the woman.

  He knew Maude and her family for he had gone to school with her in Canutillo. She had been a few grades behind him, but a boy knew all the pretty girls. Maude had been one of the prettiest with her lovely golden hair. As a woman, even dusty and sweating, she was beautiful.

  "Maude, what are you doing here? What's going on?" She was breathing hard her ribs caving in and out. A pulse throbbed rapidly at the base of her throat, like a tiny trapped animal trying to break free. She caught hold of the saddle horn to steady herself.

  "Ben, you've got to help me. They're chasing me and Red can't go any farther. And neither can I."

  "What's this all about? Who are they?"

  "Ben, they're almost here. Stop them."

  Ben pulled his Spencer rifle from its scabbard on the horse. With an almost offhand shot, he sent a bullet whistling between the two approaching riders.

  The men yanked their steeds to a halt. They swiftly pulled their rifles. Peering hard ahead along the road at Ben and Maude, they talked back and forth between themselves. Agreeing upon some action, they walked their horses forward.

  Ben was surprised at the action of the men. They should have turned tail and run, or at the least have gone into the rocks flanking the road in preparation for a fight. Instead they were riding openly toward him, and they seemed ready to shoot.

  "Who are they?" Ben said.

  "My father and Lester Ivorsen. Please don't let them force me to go back."

  "You're running away?"

  "As far away as I can go. Ben, I'm old enough to do what I want, not what someone tells me to do."

  Ben was listening and he agreed with Maude. He had left home at fifteen. Maude must be seventeen, maybe even eighteen, and had certainly grown into a mature woman. Another thought was in his mind. Maude had looked directly into his face and hadn't been shocked or repulsed at the sight. He didn't understand that, nor how she knew who he was with his altered appearance. He would like to know more about those things.

  "I think so too, Maude. We'll have a talk with them and tell them just that."

  "Thanks," Maude said, happy with Ben's response. "But don't talk with them. Just make them go away."

  "Maybe I won't have to fight them if we talk," Ben said as he warily watched the men, who had closed to within a couple hundred feet.

  "That you, Hawkins?" Simon shouted out.

  "It's me, Bradshaw. Now Maude says she doesn't want to go back with you."

  Simon and Lester had continued to advance. They now brought their mounts to a stop a few yards from Ben and Maude. Simon looked at his prize horse. His face reddened with anger. "Damn you, Maude, you've rode him to death."

  At Simon's curse of his daughter, Ben's mood turned ugly and his temper flared hot and short. "You ruined him by chasing her," Ben said, his voice rough as if dragged over stones. "Just let her go and be done with it."

  "She's going back with me and Lester," Simon said. "She's my daughter and she'll do as I say."

  "She's old enough to do what she pleases," Ben countered.

  "You're wrong in butting into this." Ivorsen spoke for the first time. "She's going back with us."

  "What's your part in this, Ivorsen?"

  "Maude's my wife." Ivorsen smiled victoriously.

  Ben whirled on Maude. "That the truth?"

  Maude nodded dismally. "Yes, Ben. But I'm not a slave. If I'm old enough to marry him, then I'm old enough to leave him. And he's hit me. I want to be free to start a new life!" A sob escaped Maude. "I don't want to be married. Ben, you know how it is when there are many wives and one man."

  Ben knew what Maude meant. His father, Samuel, had had four wives, with his mother the first. Ben was her only child, and the o
ldest of Samuel's offspring. Samuel had neglected her and she was a sad and brokenhearted woman. When Ben had grown to an age to know which girl was pretty, he had come to understand his mother was a plain woman. Samuel, without regard for his mother's feelings, would choose to spend his nights with one of his pretty and younger wives.

  Ben could vividly remember how his mother would primp and dress for the evening gatherings. She kept a tiny glass jar of red mints and each time she thought she would be near Samuel, she would put one in her mouth to make her breath sweet. When she didn't have perfume, she would crush rose petals and spread the fragrance on her skin. During all the years that Ben had been home and old enough to remember events, the evenings that Samuel had accompanied his mother back to her rooms for the night could be counted on his fingers. He hated his father for that cruel neglect of his mother. He believed the neglect had broken his mother's heart and hastened her death.

  "I know how it is. Still, I can't help you."

  "Ben Hawkins, I never thought you were a coward," Maude said, her eyes cold.

  "Coward or not, I can't help you." There was an unwritten code among men that one didn't take the side of a woman against her husband. Maude should get a divorce from Lester.

  "I'll never go back with them!" Maude screamed. She snatched up a rock from the ground and hurled it at Lester.

  The well-aimed missile struck Lester in the chest. His face became grim. He leapt and caught Maude around the waist and crushed her against him, pinning her arms.

  Lester looked past Maude at Ben. "Get on your way, Hawkins," he said roughly. "My wife is none of your business."

  "Ben, please don't leave," Maude pleaded. "I didn't mean what I said. Help me."

  Ben shook his head. He was saddened by Maude's plight, but not willing to interfere. He went to Brutus, mounted and rode past the three and off along the road.

  He had gone but a short ways when he heard a cry of pain behind him. He whirled to see Maude holding her face and Lester towering over her slight form.

  Ben was stricken by the sight. A brutal and grinding thought came that she had been correct. A woman had the right to leave a cruel husband. The old rule among men not to intervene between a husband and his wife was wrong.

  He reined Brutus back. He would help Maude to escape from the men. That should have been his decision before. Now most likely one or both of the men would try to prevent him from doing that. If they did fight him, then they would receive the worst of it.

  Maude lifted her head and saw Ben returning. His ravaged face was tight and hard with determination, and immensely gruesome. He was coming to help her.

  Lester shoved Maude to the side and took his rifle in both hands. Her father moved quickly to stand with Lester. Maude saw the men raise their weapons. They were going to shoot Ben over her.

  "Ben, don't!" Maude called hurriedly, frightened for him. "I'm all right. Everything's all right. I'm going back to Canutillo with them."

  "You sure, Maude?" Ben said slowing his advance. "I've changed my mind and I'll take you wherever you want to go. Those two can't stop me."

  "I'll go with them." She wanted to tell him to come and lift her up on his big horse and ride away with her. But she couldn't be the cause of men shooting each other.

  "You sure?"

  "I'm sure."

  Ben knew Maude was lying to him about wanting to return to Canutillo, and he knew why. It was a brave and generous thing for her to do, but a bitter thing for him to go along with it.

  He locked his eyes on Lester. "If you ever hit Maude again, I'll beat you within an inch of your life."

  With that sure and certain promise, Ben again turned Brutus to the west.

  TWENTY SIX

  The dust, lying thick on the El Paso street, splashed like water from under Brutus's and the packhorse's iron-shod hooves. A yellow tail of the dust, hanging in the air light as smoke, trailed out behind Ben and the horses.

  Ben looked about at the town where he had once been deputy sheriff. It was a tough, wide-open place with twenty-five saloons and cantinas, and six brothels. The population was about half Anglo and half Mexican. Located on the famous El Camino Real, the town was on the important north-south trade route between cities in Mexico and Santa Fe in the New Mexico Territory. Also, it was on the well traveled east-west road between Texas and California. In spite of the war and many men off fighting, the town was still thriving.

  He did notice that most of the pedestrians moving on the wooden sidewalks were women. A large percentage of them would lose a brother, husband, some relative in the distant fighting.

  Ben smelled the tantalizing aroma of fresh-baked bread wafting to him from the restaurant just ahead, and his hunger soared. He had been traveling for many days and was looking forward to a cool bath and a good meal. After enjoying both of those things, he would take a midday siesta. In the evening he had a promise to keep.

  Brutus's head snapped around as a pigeon dove down from a rooftop and landed in the street beside him. Ignoring the horse, the bird began to peck at something in the dust.

  A cat, all teeth and claws, came from under the porch of the restaurant like a gray streak. It launched itself at its prey. The alert bird saw the cat and leapt into flight, fleeing into the sky in a flutter of fear.

  The cat landed, its feet puffing the dust up in a yellow cloud. The cat was invisible for a moment. Then it came out of the dust, shook itself, and stalked back in under the porch.

  "Gray Cat missed that time," Ben said to Brutus. The cat fed well, for many birds came to scavenge scraps of food dropped in front of the restaurant.

  Ben came to the town plaza. There was no dust here, for the ground had been surfaced with gravel from the nearby Rio Grande. A huge Catholic church occupied one full side of the square, and the El Prado hotel, old but well maintained, the distant side. Located on the other two sides were a large general store, a hardware, a cantina, a saddlery and boot repair shop, and a few open stalls selling fresh fruits and vegetables. He continued across the plaza and entered Main Street, with its many establishments for buying and selling.

  The Hanford Hotel, Ben's goal, was in sight a block distant. However, as Brutus carried him closer, he saw it wasn't the Hanford anymore. The three-story structure was undergoing a major transformation. A new wing, three stories like the main structure, was being added to the building. A slate roof had replaced the tin one and the brick walls had been cleaned and tuck-pointed. Ben could tell the inside of the hotel was also being refurbished because there was a tall pile of old doors and wainscoting and plasterboard being hauled away by men driving wagons.

  A twenty-foot-long sign with bright blue lettering on a snow-white background was being hung across the front of the building. The sign read, "Palace Of Pretty Women." Someone was spending a huge sum of money on a new business, whatever that might be.

  Ben was disappointed at not finding the Hanford a suitable place to eat and rest. He could turn back and take a room at the El Prado on the plaza. Instead he rode on across the town and went north.

  * * *

  Ben sat on the large, flat rock on the hill above Canutillo and looked down at the town nestled along the east side of the Rio Grande. He had sat on this very same rock countless times as a boy. Over those years he had seen the town steadily grow, until now it stretched along the river for nearly a mile.

  He watched the last of the sunlight desert the valley and dusk rise up out of the cracks and crevices of the earth to fill it with gray. Near the bottom of the hill, a coyote, which had lain hidden in a thicket of mesquite bushes, came into sight stealing toward a band of sheep in a pasture near the town. Delving back into his memories, Ben thought the pasture belonged to Silas Dunlap. Too bad, Silas, looks like you're going to lose a sheep.

  The dusk condensed to night, and a yellow square of light appeared in one of the houses in the town as somebody lit a lamp. Ben took that as a sign and rose to his feet. He could go the cemetery and not find anyone there to ogle
him and then turn away without speaking.

  Earlier he had located a patch of the beautiful red Indian paintbrush flowers. Now he picked a handful, and careful not to crush them, mounted Brutus and rode down the slope of the hill.

  Ben entered the stone-walled cemetery, well tended by the church elders, and went to the far right side where the Hawkins dead were buried. There he knelt and placed the Indian paintbrush flowers upon his mother's grave.

  "I miss you, old gal," he said softly.

  He seated himself on the ground and leaned against his mother's headstone. The memories of her and his days as a youth pressed forward wanting to be released. He let them come, one after another unrolling across his inner eye.

  There was pleasure in some; others had a sadness that brought mist to his eyes. As time passed, the real world around Ben turned black and the stars and moon became bright shining objects in the high dome of blackness overhead.

  The sound of music intruded into Ben's reminiscences and brought him back to the present. He cocked his head and knew instantly the source of the music. It was coming from the People's Hall, the public meeting place for the citizens of the town. Tonight, however, the music told of a dance in progress.

  A surge of desire to see Maude brought Ben to his feet. He retrieved Brutus from where he had been left at the cemetery gate. Drawn by the music and the probability that Maude would be at the dance, he walked into the town, going along the street dimly lighted by coal-oil lamps placed at each street intersection. His heart was beating a gentle tempo of anticipation.

  Soon Ben could see dozens of vehicles, buggies, surreys, and wagons, with the teams of horses that drew them, lining both sides of the street near the hall. Light streamed from all the windows. A crowd of boys, young and too bashful to go inside and ask a girl to dance, milled about talking and laughing. Ben had once occupied that very same space. Then he had grown and become brave and had always gone inside and danced with the girls in the big hall.