Wife Stealer

by F. M. Parker

  He tied Brutus, went along the side wall to a window, and peered into the hall. He scanned the couples promenading to the music. He saw Lester dancing with one of his wives. Three of his other wives were seated with the men and women on the benches along the walls and calmly waiting their turn to dance with their husband. Maude wasn't in the hall.

  Ben continued on to the rear of the building, where there were no windows. He stood in the darkness and listened to the delightful music, dampened by the intervening wall but still easily heard. He could make out the sound of two fiddles and a piano. The piano was part of the furnishings of the hall.

  All the musical instruments were being skillfully played, and Ben felt his feet wanting to move to the music, as they had done many times with a girl in his arms. The music was a waltz, a lively one. Without consciously deciding to do so, Ben began to step and swing in rhythm with the music. He held his arms as if clasping a willing girl and whirled about on the hard-packed ground.

  Ben stopped embarrassed by his actions, and backed up to stand against the wall of the hall. He would listen to one more piece of music and then leave.

  He saw a shadow move among the trees that grew at the border of the hall's rear yard. The figure hesitated, pressing to the trunk of one of the trees. After a moment the person moved, coming slowly into the yard. It was a woman in a dress and Ben thought he recognized her.

  "Maude, is that you?"

  "Who's that?

  "Cowardly Ben."

  Maude came through the night separating them with quick steps and grabbed Ben by the arm. "Please forgive me for saying that," she whispered huskily.

  Astonished at Maude's action to take hold of him, Ben placed his hand lightly on top of hers. The friendliness of her greeting, the touch of her hand made his blood rush with a joyous thrum. He laughed, something he hadn't done for many a month.

  "Tell me that you forgive me," Maude said again.

  "There's nothing to forgive. But I'll say it. I forgive you."

  "Good. Did I see you dancing a minute ago?"

  "You were here? You spied on me."

  Maude laughed lightly. "Not spying. I just happened to be there in the trees."

  "Why aren't you inside with the music and dancing?"

  "I didn't want to go inside. Ben, why didn't you ever ask me to dance? Those last couple of years before you went off to war, I was at the dances and you were too."

  "I saw you there. I couldn't help it for you were the prettiest. But you were too young for me."

  "I was never too young for you. My mother married at fifteen, and my father was twenty-five at the time."

  Maude peered hard through the darkness at Ben. "I wished a thousand times that you would ask me to dance. But you always passed me by and asked one of the other girls."

  Ben remained silent, overwhelmed by the discovery of Maude's feelings toward him.

  "All you had to do was ask and I would've danced forever with you," Maude said. "Then you left and came back wounded and wouldn't talk with anybody. Just ride that big Brutus through town with your hat pulled down."

  Ben was astounded that Maude had not mentioned the ugliness of his wounds. They must frighten her as they did everyone else.

  "Listen, Ben, hear the music?"

  "Yes."

  "Ask me to dance. Like you should've done years ago."

  Ben fought through the flurry of emotions Maude had brought to life in him. He stepped back and bowed to her.

  "Miss Bradshaw, would you like to dance?"

  "It would be a pleasure, Mr. Hawkins."

  Ben caught Maude by the waist and the hand and whirled away with her in the night. He felt her easy response to his lead, joining with him, picking up the tempo of the music. They spun about with their steps in perfect synchrony with the beat of the melody.

  By the time Ben had made a dozen steps with Maude, he was totally caught up in the music and the nearness of her. He felt her soft breath, light as the fluff of milkweed on his cheek. Her hair glistened gold and silver in the moonlight. He smelled her sweet woman's perfume. Ben smiled in the darkness. The perfection of the night was so great that he wanted it to never end. It was just fine to be alive. How could the touch of a woman change the world so much? Did Maude feel the same way? He wished he could see if Maude was smiling too.

  The musicians inside the hall broke into the melody for the cuna, the dance of the cradle. To perform the dance, each partner had to circle the other's waist with their arms and swing around and around, leaning back to form the top of the cradle, and at the same time they would move their lower bodies inward to close the bottom. When Ben pulled Maude in close and circled her waist with a firm hold, she cried out with pain.

  "What's wrong? Did I hurt you?"

  "My ribs are sore."

  "Did Lester hit you?"

  "No, I fell off a horse. It's nothing, Ben. I just fell."

  "Fell?"

  Ben took Maude by the hand and led her to the comer of the hall, where there was a little light from the nearest window. He took her face in his hand and turned it so he could see. Several raw, swollen bruises marred her lovely features. Lester had struck her in the face as well as the body. Now Ben knew why Maude hadn't gone inside to dance. She was ashamed of the beating Lester had given her.

  Hate for Lester burned across Ben's mind and his fists closed with the need to strike and punish. The man had made a terrible mistake, and he had been warned.

  Maude sensed the tension in Ben. "I fell, Ben. Are you listening? I fell. Don't you do something to get in trouble with the law."

  "Nothing will happen. You fell, so why should I be mad at anybody?"

  "All right then. It's getting late and I had better go."

  Maude drew Ben back into the darkness behind the hall. She caught both of his hands in hers. "Ben, it wasn't Lester. I really did fall off a horse. Now promise that you won't do anything foolish."

  "All right. I promise not to do anything foolish." Silently he thought, I'm just going to do something that has to be done.

  "Good." Maude reached up and touched Ben's scarred face. "You're still the same Ben Hawkins under all of that."

  She spun about and ran into the night.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  Ben watched from the dark street as the dancers filed laughing and talking out of the town hall. Lester and his wives came out, followed by the two fiddlers carrying their cased instruments.

  Calling good night to each other, the people began to climb into their vehicles and go off in various directions through Canutillo. Lester helped his wives into his two-seated buggy and drove off toward his home on the south end of the town.

  Ben mounted Brutus, and holding a block to the rear, followed Lester. His anger at the man for beating Maude was growing like a great serpent uncoiling in his stomach. Never could he let the man go unpunished for that.

  Lester turned off the main street and drove up the lane to his house, where he stopped to let his wives step down from the buggy. He then continued around the end of the house to the barn in the rear.

  Ben dismounted from Brutus, hung his hat on the pommel, and shadowed his way through the darkness to the front of the barn. There he waited, listening to Lester unharness the team of horses and put them in their stalls. The man came out of the barn whistling one of the pieces of music that had been played at the dance.

  Ben silently approached Lester from behind. He closed the last few feet with a rush, and springing upon Lester, hooked him around the neck with his left arm and bent him far down in front. He struck Lester a savage blow to the ribs. Then slugged him again in the same place, putting all his pent-up rage into the blow. The jarring impact of the blows running up Ben's arms and into his shoulder was a glorious sensation.

  Lester went to his knees under the savage onslaught. Then he caught his fall and heaved upward straining to straighten, and Ben, half lifted off the ground felt the full strength of the man's muscular body. Ben hung more of his weight on Lest
er, and tightened his arm into a choking hold and kept the man bent down so he could not see who was attacking him.

  Lester spun to the left, trying to dislodge his foe. Ben spun with Lester, maintaining his tight neck-hold and staying on the man's side where he couldn't be hit. He hammered Lester twice more in the ribs with his right fist.

  Lester swung his foot out to trip Ben and throw both men to the ground where he could roll and break free. Ben held them upright, and raised the aim of his fist and rained three fast wallops to the side of Lester's head.

  Ben felt Lester weakening under the flood of punishing blows. He gave him three more hard ones to the head. The man's legs gave way and he hung limp in the crook of Ben's arm.

  Detesting the touch of the man, Ben flung him down as so much offal and stepped away. Lester lay bloody and moaning on the dirt of the barnyard. Ben's rage wasn't yet cooled. He stepped back close to Lester and stomped him in the ribs. He felt bones break under his boot.

  Smiling his satisfaction to the night, Ben turned and walked away.

  * * *

  "Hello, the house. Tom, you there?"

  Ben was in the front yard of a two-story house on the east outskirts of Canutillo. The home belonged to his half brother, Tom Hawkins. Tom was the only one of his fourteen half brothers and sisters with whom he had associated. When he had arrived in the town earlier in the day, he had stabled his packhorse in the shed behind the house, and gone off to the hillside above town.

  A light came alive in the upstairs and floated down the stairs to the front room. Tom came out onto the porch.

  "About time you showed up," Tom said with obvious pleasure at Ben's arrival. "Saw a horse in the shed and figured it was yours."

  "Good to see you, Tom."

  "You too, Ben. Since you hadn't been around for months, I thought those greasers in Mexico might've shot you. Come on in."

  "Sally home?" Ben said, moving up the walk to the porch.

  "She's been over to her mom's visiting for the past two days. Seems young wives got to go and see their mom even when they've got a husband to take care of at home." Tom gestured at one of the rocking chairs on the porch. "Sit and tell me what you've been up to."

  Ben sat and stretched his legs out on the porch. "Just stealing horses."

  Tom chuckled. "I heard that rumor. I wasn't joking about the Mexicans killing you. Someday they'll get lucky."

  "Maybe. How's business?" Though a year younger than Ben, his industrious brother owned a wheelwright business. He manufactured the wheels in Canutillo and sold them out of his store in El Paso. The huge traffic of vehicles passing through that town insured a thriving business.

  "Better than ever. I'm selling every wheel I can make.

  I'd like to expand to Abilene and Arizona City. I could use a partner. Especially one with a few thousand dollars. Are you interested?"

  A month ago, even a day ago, Ben would have known the answer with certainty. It would have been no. But now? "Maybe so. I'll give it some thought."

  "Good. I hope you do come in with me. But that's enough talk about work. What have you been up to so late at night?"

  "That's something we need to talk about, in case the sheriff comes around asking 'bout me."

  "What happened?"

  "I worked Lester Ivorsen over."

  Tom peered at Ben in the lamplight coming through the open door. "Lester's a strong man. But I don't see any bruises on you."

  "I didn't go to fight him. I went to give him a beating.

  "Did you give him a good one?"

  "Left him laying flat with broken bones and bleeding."

  "Couldn't have happened to a more deserving fellow. He's been needing a thrashing for a long time. Just last month he knocked the hell out of Eddy for simply talking with one of his wives, the one named Alice."

  "Hell, if I'd known that, I would've give him even more." Eddy was Tom's younger brother.

  "But why did you feel it necessary to fight him?"

  "He hit Maude Bradshaw."

  "You mean Maude Ivorsen."

  "I reckon so, now that she's married to that bastard."

  "Lester does rule his covey of hens with a hard hand."

  "Too damn hard. She tried to tell me that she fell, but I knew better."

  "All of Lester's wives are pretty. But Maude is the prettiest. I remember how she used to look at you when you were around here."

  "She is real easy to look at." Ben regretted not knowing Maude's feelings toward him back in those long past days.

  "Ben, be careful about Lester for he's a mean one. He probably won't go to the sheriff. He'll come looking for you himself."

  "I don't think he ever got a look at my face. But if he does come after me, I hope he comes with a gun."

  "I've heard too much already," Tom said. He rose from the rocking chair. "Well, knowing you, you're probably hungry. So come inside and let's see what we can find to eat before we go to bed."

  TWENTY EIGHT

  Ben took a room in the El Prado hotel on the plaza in El Paso. He chose one in the oldest section of the hotel, where he had stayed before and knew the foot-thick walls retained the coolness of the night until well into the following day. The old section had its own entrance at the far right end of the hotel's front patio, and he could reach his room without going through the main lobby. He had stabled his horses in stalls provided by the hotel in the rear and carried his belongings into the hotel.

  Wearing his money belt, he left the hotel and walked to the Cattleman and Merchant Bank. Keeping three hundred dollars for pocket money, he left the remainder for safekeeping in the bank's steel vault.

  Ben drifted through the town with a feeling of being at loose ends. He seemed to be waiting for something to happen, and he had a gut feeling that he wasn't going to like it.

  He was glad that he had discovered Maude, but at the same time saddened by finding she was another man's wife. He deeply regretted not helping her escape from Lester and her father that day on the road. By siding with them until it was too late to back out, he had made her a prisoner in Lester's house. How would she react if he rode up on Brutus and carried her off? Even as he considered the idea, he knew the thing could never be. He was just too damn ugly.

  He guided his thoughts onto other things. He was surprised at himself for walking so openly on the street. People looked at him and then away as they always had. Still, he did not try to hide his face in any way. The reason was plain to him. Since the night Maude had touched his scars and said, "Ben Hawkins is under all of that," he had felt a lessening of his need to avoid the eyes of others. He knew she had said that because of the darkness that hid his face and because of her memory of him before the injury. In the light of day, would she have touched his face? Still, her action had strengthened him to withstand the expressions of revulsion, sometimes fright, others had when they looked upon him.

  He came to Tanner's Gaming and Pool Hall and halted in front. He had often played poker here in the evenings after getting off duty as deputy sheriff, and had found it to be a pleasant experience. He entered the establishment. A game of poker would burn up some time.

  In the early afternoon, only one card game was in progress. One of the eight pool tables had shooters knocking the balls around. Ben took a seat at the poker table, where Smiley Tanner, the owner of the hall, was dealing the cards.

  There were three other players. Ben spoke to them, recognizing Parsons and Kittridge, but not the last man. None of the men looked at him after the first glance. He handed fifty dollars to Smiley and received chips Smiley was an honest man, so Ben, knowing he didn't have to watch the dealer, relaxed and played a slow game.

  He tossed weak cards in early, and when dealt strong hands, didn't bet as heavily as he might have. Just a friendly game to pass the day.

  "What's happening with the Hanford Hotel?" Ben asked Smiley.

  "Going to upgrade the hotel and add a gambling hall," Smiley said sadly.

  "Local man doing it?" Ben
said, knowing Smiley's business would suffer because of the competition.

  "No. A man named Redpath from New Orleans. He's said to have a lot of money. He bought the hotel and hired a crew of men. A fellow that came with him named Jean Dubois is overseeing the work. Seems to be good at it."

  "I saw the sign, Palace Of Pretty Women. Strange name for a hotel and gambling place."

  "I thought so too. I asked Dubois about that and he told me all the games will be run by women. He and Redpath did bring twelve or fifteen women with them when they came. Keeps them in a rented house on the north side of town."

  "I heard those women are whores," Kittridge said. "And that Redpath is a tough man and not someone to cross."

  "Damn pretty whores, if they are," Parsons said. "I'd give one of them some money for a go."

  Smiley spoke. "Dubois said he'll be far enough along with the original hotel part to open it for business in a short while. Then we'll know for sure what Redpath's game really is."

  Ben left three hours later and eighty-six dollars richer.

  He was just entering the plaza when a spanking pair of matched horses trotted by, drawing one of the larger-size Phaeton buggies with a man and woman riding. The rumble seat behind them was full of luggage. The horses were sweating and the people dusty. They had journeyed a long distance.

  The woman, sitting on the side of the buggy toward Ben, turned her head in his direction. He saw her shocked expression as she caught sight of his face. She hastily looked away.

  Karl Redpath drove the Phaeton up in front of the El Prado and halted. "We've reached the end of the journey, Marcella," he said. The woman had accepted the name he had given her. After so many days without remembering she was Rachel Greystone, it appeared her amnesia was total and permanent.

  "Good," Marcella replied as she examined the well-kept hotel and its walled patio stretching along the entire front and full of shade-giving trees and flower beds in bright colors. She twisted about and looked at the other buildings on the plaza and the people moving about on private errands. "It's pretty here and I've had enough traveling to last for years."