The Savage Curse

by Jory Sherman

  Ben and John said their good-byes and left Gale with Lieutenant Bellaugh, who was still alive despite great odds.

  By mid-afternoon they were on the mesa and had set their bedrolls, saddlebags, and rifles inside the lab building. John found all the pots and pans, plates, and eating utensils, and there was plenty of wood to cook and keep them warm at night.

  “I wonder what happened to that Injun you caught, John. Coyote. Think he was part of that bunch that jumped the soldiers?”

  “Probably. I wouldn’t worry about him. We’re leaving first thing in the morning for Tucson.”

  “You’re just goin’ to ride in there, pretty as you please, and pay no nevermind that Hobart’s bunch might be there?”

  “Yep, I am. Goin’ straight to the assay office with that chunk of ore and some of those pouches of dust.”

  “You have to show the assayer the gold dust?”

  “I want to make his eyes wide,” John said.

  “If I didn’t know you better, Johnny, I’d say you’d gone plumb loco.”

  “Maybe. I have a hunch the word will get out pretty quick once that assayer sees what we have. And I’m counting on his having a big mouth.”

  “You goin’ to see that Sheriff Wilts that the lieutenant told you about?”

  “Yes, but I’m sure Gale will beat us to it.”

  “She goin’ up there today?”

  “If Bellaugh can make the trip,” John said.

  At dawn the next morning, John and Ben were already riding toward Tucson, carrying the chunk of rich ore and several bags of gold dust they still had from the diggings in Colorado.

  Gold, John thought, was like a magnet. It drew people to it, cast them under its magic spell.

  He hoped Hobart would be the first to succumb to its golden allure.

  23

  THE SIGN ON THE ADOBE STORE WINDOW READ: HIRAM L. ABERNATHY, PROP. ASSAYS, MINING CLAIMS, NOTARY PUBLIC. The morning sun was the only light on the street and halfway down, the small building was still in shadow. John could see a man moving around inside the store brandishing a feather duster. Motes of dust danced in his wake like mothlings stirred from their night beds.

  Ben and John tied their horses to hitchrings embedded in an adobe cairn in front of the boardwalk, and walked inside. Ben carried a gunny sack with the ore sample, John had his saddlebags slung over his shoulder, one pouch bulging with sacks of gold dust.

  Abernathy looked up at the big clock on his wall as the two men entered his store. A bell tinkled above it, bobbing on a slender bar of metal. The sound startled Ben and he staggered to the side in a misstep. Abernathy chuckled.

  “That’s just my warning bell,” the man said, “so’s I can hear if anybody comes in while I’m in the back room working at my trade.”

  “You the assayer?” John asked.

  “Hiram Abernathy at your service, sir. What can I do for you on this fine morning? Early as it is, we’re open for business.”

  “You get much business?” Ben asked, hefting the heavy burlap sack.

  “Not so much, not so steady, but tollible, sir, tollible. What you got in your sack?”

  “Gold ore,” John said, his voice booming in the small room. “From the old Gill mine.”

  “Knowed old Clarence,” Abernathy said. “He was good people. Gale sell his mine to you boys?”

  “Yes,” John said. “We have some ore we took out yesterday. Got more of it up there and we got some dust we want weighed.”

  “You boys must have been workin’ hard. Where’d you get the dust?”

  “We have a place,” John said.

  “Not up on that shelf.”

  “You ask a lot of questions, Mr. Abernathy,” John said. “We want an assay and a weighing, that’s all.”

  “Sure, sure, glad to do it. Let me see your ore, then we can weigh your dust.”

  Ben thought Abernathy’s eyes would pop out of his skull when he slid the ore from the sack. The assayer turned the ore over and over in his hands and his eyes bulged even more.

  “Take me a day or so to get you an assay on this. I’ll have you sign some papers, which I will also sign, and then we’ll both be protected.”

  “Fine,” John said.

  Abernathy took the ore into a back room. Ben and John could hear him load it onto a shelf. When he returned, he was smiling. He brought with him a legal document and a receipt. He wrote down all the pertinent information.

  “Now, your name, sir, if you please?”

  “John Savage.”

  Abernathy wrote down the name. John watched him closely, saw no sign that his name registered with the man. The assayer signed all the papers and wrote out a receipt for the ore sample. He gave John a copy that matched his own. He slid his copy under the counter, out of sight. John folded his receipt and handed it to Ben, who tucked it inside his shirt.

  “Now let’s take a look at your dust. Gold is at sixteen dollars the ounce.”

  John reached into his saddlebag and set six sacks of gold dust on the counter. Abernathy’s eyes strained to get out of their sockets. These were large leather pouches and when he lifted one, his mouth twisted into a half smile and his nose wrinkled.

  “My, you two have been busy,” he said.

  Abernathy opened one pouch and looked inside, eyes wide as a bird egg.

  He set the scales.

  “I should pour this out,” he said. “Sack weighs so much.”

  “Do what you have to do,” John said.

  “Well, let’s see here,” Abernathy said. He poured the gold dust into a small funneled container on the scale. He reached under the counter, pulled out a piece of paper and the stub of a lead pencil.

  He marked the weight of the dust and wrote it down on the piece of paper. He hummed to himself while he did this.

  “Now I’ll just weigh this pouch empty, and we might be able to speed up the process. Looks like each sack weighs about the same. Unless you want a real accurate figure on how much your dust weighs.”

  “Close is good enough,” John said. “We’re in something of a hurry.”

  “We’ll do it that way, then. You want to cash any of this dust in for greenbacks?”

  “No.”

  Abernathy removed the container with the dust and weighed the leather pouch. He wrote down that figure.

  “Now,” he said, “we’ll just weigh these other pouches and see how many ounces in each, subtracting the weight of the pouch.”

  Ben watched Abernathy, who hummed some tuneless ditty while he weighed and subtracted and wrote down figures on the piece of paper. When he was finished, he handed the sacks to John, one in each hand. John put them back in his saddlebag.

  “My, my,” Abernathy said to himself as he totaled the figures. “You have a goodly amount of dust here. Is this all you have?”

  “No,” John said. “We just brought those in because they were handy.”

  Ben’s eyes went wide, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He poked his tongue into one cheek, pooching it out as though he had a lollypop in it.

  Abernathy turned the piece of paper around, pushed it toward John.

  “Those are the ounces, and I took the liberty of multiplying those by sixteen to give you a dollar figure on what your dust is worth at this moment.”

  John studied the figures, but did not pick up the piece of paper.

  “Sounds right,” he said.

  He left the paper on the counter and Abernathy made no more mention of it. Instead, he licked his lips, looking like the cat who swallowed the goldfish out of the bowl, his eyes protruding like a pair of marbles in a bowl of mush.

  “See you in a couple of days,” John said. “Thank you, Mr. Abernathy.”

  “Yes, you come back, sir. I’ll have your assay ready for you.”

  “At first glance, Mr. Abernathy, does the ore look promising to you?” John asked.

  Abernathy cleared his throat.

  “Well, hard to say. Have to do some checking, some weighing. A
nd, as you may know, an assay can only assess what’s measurable. If you have a vein, it could peter out after a couple of inches, or it could go several feet, high or low, deep or shallow.”

  “I understand,” John said.

  “Ah, do you have any more like that one?” Abernathy asked. “None of my business, of course, but just curious.”

  John thought a moment as he looked into Abernathy’s eyes. They were lit up like a pair of glowworms.

  He looked at Ben and winked with the eye that Abernathy could not see.

  “I got a couple of wheelbarrows full of ore just like that chunk I brought in.”

  Abernathy swallowed, which seemed to act on his eyes, both of which widened and swelled like a pair of roasting marshmallows on a stick.

  “Well, now,” Abernathy clucked without making a sentence or expressing his thought.

  “See you in a couple of days, Mr. Abernathy,” John said again, holding back his smile. He and Ben walked out of the building and onto the street. They untied their horses and rode off at a slow pace.

  “Where now?” Ben asked.

  “First to see Sheriff Wilts,” John said.

  “Then back to the mine?”

  “No,” John said, “I want to take a look at that saloon Crudder mentioned when we were in the canyon.”

  “Hobart’s hangout?”

  “That’s the place,” John said.

  “Johnny, you’re playin’ with fire, ain’t you?”

  John thought about Abernathy and his reaction not only to the ore sample but to the sacks of gold dust. He had seen such looks before, in Cherry Creek, Denver, Cheyenne. Gold did funny things to a man, any man, and Abernathy’s excitement was plain to see. If his hunch was right, the man would brag about his morning’s business to anyone who would listen. And there probably wasn’t a man in Tucson who wouldn’t.

  “Playing with fire, Ben?” John said. “I sure hope so.”

  24

  VENDORS BEGAN TO SET OUT THEIR WARES AS THE SUN ROSE higher, splashing light on the adobe buildings. Unmarked and painted pottery sat on wooden boards nailed into square platforms. Women draped serapes and rugs over sawhorses and displayed turquoise trinkets, bracelets, necklaces, rings, spoons, knives, and forks, attached to cloth-covered boards leaned against the front of buildings. Mexicans drove carretas , small carts, drawn by burros, down every street, hawking their wares of copper pots, fresh chickens, eggs, piglets in wooden cages, pitchers and bowls, wooden toys painted with ancient Navajo symbols.

  Log roof beams jutted from the top floors of adobe buildings and they read signs on false fronts that proclaimed ABARROTES, COMIDAS, and TORTILLERILLA. Indian men and women, Hopis, wore plum-colored shirts and sat in shady spots hawking beads and deerskin moccasins, purses and belt pouches, knives made from wagon springs lying next to beaded sheaths.

  The air smelled clean and fresh, and the smells of corn and flour tortillas wafted on the morning air. The carts stirred up little dust in the damp streets and the scent of wood smoke was pleasant, mixed with the smoke of strong tobacco and charcoal. Two large wagons loomed ahead of Ben and John, lumbering down the street with flocks of boys on either side chattering in Spanish.

  The wagons were stacked high with pine coffins, whip-sawed boards nailed together with square nails from the local foundry. The mules left signs of their passing in steaming clumps on the street, and that smell mingled with the taint of urine emptied from full bladders.

  “Are them coffins?” Ben asked as if he already knew the question was inane.

  “What do you think?” John said.

  “They sure is a passel of ’em.”

  “I counted twelve. Six in each wagon.”

  “Where they takin’ them?”

  “Let’s find out,” John said.

  They followed the wagons for another two blocks. The lead wagon stopped in front of a false front erected on an adobe building. The driver set the brake, climbed down and walked around it, then stepped up on the boardwalk. The sign in the window read: PERCIVAL MARLEY & SON, UNDERTAKERS.

  A man came out of the establishment and spoke to the driver, pointed to the end of the block, and made a circling motion with his hands. Ben and John rode up close enough to hear him.

  “Take them around to the alley in back. There’s a loading dock where you can set ’em.”

  “You got somebody to help us, Mr. Marley?”

  “My son will be waitin’ for you. Get along now. You’re blockin’ the street.”

  The driver touched a finger to the brim of his derby hat and walked back around the wagon.

  “We’re goin’ out back, Jenks. Just foller me.”

  Jenks nodded. He was a younger man, no more than fifteen or sixteen, John figured, and he was hatless. Both men wore suspenders and heavy work boots. They smelled of pine shavings and wagon grease. The mules slapped their tails at flies and shook their heads to get rid of the pests.

  The wagons pulled away as Marley went back inside. He was a florid-faced man, dressed in a black suit. He wore a black string tie that made him look even more slender than he was. Ben and John could hear him yelling to someone in the back of the large, oblong room that was filled with open caskets on display.

  “Looks like that gent’s got him some business,” Ben said.

  “I wonder,” John said, “if his customers are wearing U.S. Army uniforms.”

  “Hey, I never thought of that,” Ben said. “D’you suppose . . .”

  “I do,” John said and clucked to his horse, prodding his flanks with his spurs. They rode another block and stopped in front of a small building, also adobe, with a false front. The lettering on the window announced that it was the sheriff’s office, and beneath it, the name SAM WILTS, SHERIFF.

  There was a hitchrail out front. A half dozen saddled horses were lined up, their reins wrapped around the top rail. Next to the horses there was a small burro, a blanket for a saddle, wearing a rope bridle, tied to a post.

  Both John and Ben noticed the A brands on the hips of the horses.

  “Looks like army,” Ben said.

  “And no soldiers anywhere in sight.”

  “What’re you getting’ at, John?”

  “Maybe nothing.” John’s eyes narrowed in thought, but he didn’t elaborate. All of the rifle scabbards were empty, and there was a long rope through all the bit rings.

  The two men tied their horses to vacant posts and walked into the sheriff’s office. A man wearing a badge sat behind a small cherrywood desk, his protruding belly pouring over his gunbelt. He had a handlebar moustache and flaring sideburns that fuzzed out gray at the ends. His small wet mouth was tobacco-stained a mottled brown, and his small receding chin was almost lost in the bulge of his thick neck. A lean slat of a man stood to one side, arms folded, a deputy’s badge on his vest, while a small Mexican man, holding a straw sombrero in his hand, stood in front of the desk, his black hair sodden with sweat, glistening like black velvet in the sunlight that blared from the front window.

  Sheriff Sam Wilts looked at John and Ben, his eyebrows arching in a silent inquisitive signal.

  “Gentleman,” Wilts said in a noncommittal tone.

  “You Sheriff Wilts?” John said.

  “That depends. He owe you money?”

  Ben snickered.

  The deputy chortled.

  The Mexican’s eyes glittered under hooded cowls.

  “If you are Wilts,” John said, “I have a message for you from Lieutenant Clive Bellaugh.”

  John spoke so soft the sheriff and deputy both had to lean forward to hear from him. But now he had their complete attention.

  “You what?”

  “You heard me,” John said, his patience thinning down to the size of a wheat straw.

  “Bellaugh?”

  “That’s the one,” John said.

  “What’s the message?”

  John told him about the detachment being jumped by some white men and Navajos. He told Wilts that only Bellaug
h and Dunhill had escaped.

  “Both were badly wounded when they rode up to the Gill ranch. Corporal Dunhill died, and Bellaugh might be dead by now. He was shot up pretty bad. Lost a lot of blood.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “The message from Bellaugh to you is this, Sheriff. He knows the name of two men who attacked him.”

  “He does?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “What are the names?”

  John let several seconds pass by. He wanted both Wilts and his deputy to keep that curious expression on their faces. He wanted to see how those expressions changed when he mentioned the names of the two men.

  “Crudder and Hobart,” John said.

  The deputy’s mouth dropped open like the trapdoor on a gallows stage.

  Sheriff Wilts pooched out his lips as his eyes bulged like a pair of bubbles in a pot of boiling grits.

  He scooted back in his chair and looked hard at the Mexican.

  “Manolito,” he said, “do you know those men?”

  Manolito shook his head.

  “I do not know them, but I heard their names called when they were fighting the soldiers.”

  “Manolito here was hunting rattlesnakes when he heard the soldiers coming. Then he heard the ambush. He brought those horses back. And he brought the dead men here in a wagon last night. He said the outlaws and the Indians killed all the soldiers. He didn’t know that two got away. The others were run off or captured by Indians.”

  “Did he say where Hobart and Crudder went?” John asked.

  “He said they rode south, toward Mexico.”

  “Do you know Hobart and Crudder, Sheriff?”

  “I know of them. They stayed in Tucson a while back, then up and disappeared. I figured good riddance.”

  “Didn’t you know Hobart was a wanted man?”

  “I do now. I found a flyer in my stack of wanted dodgers. Why? You know this jasper?”

  “No, I don’t know him,” John said.

  “Who are you anyway? I don’t believe I caught your names?”

  “I’m John Savage. This is Ben Russell.”

  “You wanted for anything?”

  “I don’t think so,” John said.