by Paul Lederer
‘But you don’t know for sure?’ Brad Tabor asked, his hawkish eyes growing more suspicious.
‘No, I don’t. I only know that the Malloy gang is responsible for taking it.’
‘I see,’ Tabor said thoughtfully, closing the lid of the box. ‘What are you – a bounty hunter or something?’
‘No, sir. It’s just something I … came across.’ Joe found that he hadn’t the energy to tell the long tale again right then. ‘I wanted to return it.’
Tabor said, ‘I’ve got the key to the safe. I’ll lock it in there and let Marshal Donnely take care of it when he gets back. Do you want to wait around and talk to him?’
‘I’d rather not,’ Joe said honestly. ‘All I ever wanted to do was return the money to whoever it belongs to.’
‘Well,’ Tabor said rising to shake hands again, ‘You’ve done all you came do, Mr Sample. The rest is up to us, it seems.’
‘Thanks,’ Joe said, picking up his saddle-bags. ‘I’m glad to finally have that off my hands, off my mind.’
‘And we thank you for being an honest citizen – a lot of men would have just taken off with it.’
And they would not have gotten far, Joe thought, Not with that money. There would always be somebody after it until it was tucked away in a vault somewhere. It had a hex of some kind on it, and other greedy men with guns would continue searching for it.
Frank Singleton, for instance. And what had happened to Frank? Likely his horse had foundered and he had been left on foot to walk to Flagstaff. No matter: Joe no longer cared. He had Irma’s gray horse and he was Socorro-bound, without the burden of the stolen money. As he swung aboard the borrowed horse and headed toward the rising morning sun, his heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. His only destination was one he knew well: the home ranch, the Double Seven.
The horse was easy to ride. Its smooth gait ate up more miles than seemed to have passed. Irma had said that the gray hadn’t been exercised much lately, and the animal seemed to be enjoying its escape from the confines of a stable box. Still, Joe was careful not to overuse it.
After a cold night and a hot day on the desert, the country began to become more familiar. One day after, around noon, he drew up in the yard of the Double Seven ranch house. There were three horses at the hitchrail. Joe spotted the shaggy Ike Cavanaugh emerging from the red barn and he rode toward him. Cavanaugh looked up, his eyes not registering recognition. Then he did know who Joe was and he smiled, throwing his arms out.
‘Welcome back, you saddle bum,’ Cavanaugh said in a growl intended to mask his pleasure. ‘About time you got back to work. Imagine laying up in that fancy hotel all this time!’
Joe didn’t take the time to disabuse Cavanaugh of the notion. He was happy to see his old friend and told him so before swinging down from the saddle.
As soon as Joe planted his right foot he knew something was wrong. His leg was not getting better, it was worse. Jagged pain shot up it from ankle to hip. He had started riding before he should have — but what choice had he back in Yuma without a dollar to his name? The leg, he knew, would never be the same, not good enough to get back to work. He vaguely regretted having left his cane behind as he led the gray horse into the barn, limping heavily. Ike Cavanaugh watched him with knitted brow and critical eyes.
‘Never did mend right? The leg?’ he asked, and Joe just shook his head as he removed the saddle from the gray horse.
‘That’s tough,’ Ike said. ‘Why’d you bother coming back to the Double Seven, then?’
‘Where else would I go? Besides Poetry said he was keeping me on the payroll until I was healed. I was hoping he would let me have a few bucks to buy a horse.’
‘If Poetry said he would do it, he will. Never had a finer boss than Poetry Givens.’ Ike watched as Joe finished tending to his horse. Then the older man told him, ‘That friend of yours is still working here.’
‘What friend?’ Joe asked.
‘You know who I mean – that Tittle Sparks. Poetry took him on because of your recommendation.’ Ike added in a grumble, ‘Though I can’t say he’s much as a cowhand.’
‘Tittle Sparks?’ Joe said hoarsely.
‘He says he knows you.’
‘He does. But the one and only time I met him was when he took $200 from me while I was sleeping,’ Joe said angrily. Then he asked, ‘Where is he now?’
‘Why, he’s over in the bunkhouse, or was, last I knew,’ Ike said.
‘I think I’d better talk to him.’
‘Don’t you want to talk to Poetry first?’
‘No. This can’t wait.’
Ike shrugged using only his eyebrows. ‘Let’s go, then.’
Joe was still trail-weary and on top of that his leg had begun to stiffen again as it always did after moments of pain, but he was determined. He made his way clumsily across the dusty yard, Ike in his wake, past the big house and toward the bunkhouse beyond. They walked through the small grove of dusty live oaks and emerged in front of the bunkhouse. Three loafers sat on the front porch, pretending to mend harness and braid riatas as they smoked and exchanged jokes. Joe knew two of them, and he nodded.
‘Is Sparks around?’ he asked one of them, and the man inclined his head toward the bunkhouse and returned to braiding his riata.
Joe entered the low ceilinged building’s shadowed interior with its rows of double bunk beds and spotted Tittle Sparks almost immediately. He was sitting on a lower bunk, cleaning his rifle.
‘Stand up,’ Joe commanded and Sparks looked up with surprised eyes.
‘Joe Samples!’
‘It’s me, you damned sneak thief,’ Joe said. His hands were tightly clenched. ‘The desert didn’t kill me after all.’
‘I guess you want your buckskin horse back,’ Sparks said, rising uncertainly. His eyes went beyond Joe as if expecting someone to help him.
‘I want the horse, I want my money. Mostly I want to beat you to a pulp for leaving me stranded out there.’
Sparks was cornered. He tried a weak, unconvincing smile and then took the rifle he had been cleaning, gripping it by the barrel, and swung wildly at Joe’s head. Joe ducked and it missed, arcing around to strike one of the bunk bed’s uprights. Joe launched himself at Sparks. His shoulder caught Sparks in the chest and sent him back on to the bunk, his arms flailing as he tried to fight Joe off. With Joe on top of him, Sparks could hit nothing but Joe’s back with his wild punches. Joe grabbed the front of Tittle’s shirt and held him up briefly before driving his fist into Sparks’s face twice. Groaning, Sparks went limp, his eyes rolling back in his head. Limp now, he rolled to the floor and remained there. A group of men had gathered around them to watch the fight. Now one of them called out:
‘The boss is coming!’
As Joe stood panting, trying to regain both breath and composure, a familiar figure appeared in the doorway. Poetry Givens wore a white shirt and gray linen slacks. His silver hair was neatly barbered, his flourishing silver mustache twitching slightly, blue eyes cold.
‘What’s this? You men know I won’t stand for any fighting on this ranch.’ He squinted into the darkness of the bunk house, his eyes still adjusting to the change of light from the brilliance in the yard beyond the doorway.
‘Joe? Are you back?’ Then he caught sight of Tittle Sparks who had managed to sit up and now sat sagged against the wall.
‘This man stole my horse, my money and left me afoot on the desert,’ Joe said. He wiped back his hair and walked forward to meet his employer. The two shook hands. Poetry had noticed Joe’s limp. ‘Never did heal right, huh? Well, Joe, I guess the man had it coming, if what you say is true.’
‘How much did he take from you, Joe?’ Ike Cavanaugh asked.
‘It was a little over $200, most of it in paper money.’
‘Why don’t we have a look?’ Ike suggested and he lifted up the mattress on Tittle Sparks’s bunk. Beneath it was a set of saddle-bags. Ike turned them over and announced. ‘Initials “J.S.” burned i
n the leather. Mr Givens.’
‘Let Joe have them,’ Poetry said.
Ike handed the saddle-bags to Joe, who unbuckled one side of them and looked inside. Reaching in he removed a narrow sheaf of bills. A couple of gold twenty dollar pieces lay in the bottom.
‘It’s mine, all right,’ he said. ‘A few dollars missing, but what can you expect.’
‘You,’ Poetry said in his no-nonsense voice, leveling a finger at Tittle Sparks who still sat on the floor, back against the wall. ‘Get off my ranch. I will not countenance a thief.’ Then Poetry spun on his heel and left the bunkhouse.
Joe stood over Sparks. The man was nearly blubbering. ‘Where can I go – I don’t even have the buckskin horse now.’
‘You’re no worse off than you were when I first met you,’ Joe reminded him. ‘But here,’ he said flipping a silver dollar which landed on Sparks’s lap where it shined dully. ‘A man has to have a little traveling money.’
‘Need some help getting up?’ Ike Cavanaugh asked, as Joe Sample prepared to mount his buckskin horse.
‘No – I’m not that far gone yet,’ Joe replied with a smile.
‘What did Poetry say to you?’ Cavanaugh inquired.
‘He first paid me two weeks’ back pay, which was big of him and then offered me a yard job, although he’s already got two men working around the place. I told him that I appreciated the offer, but I had other prospects.’
‘Such as?’ Cavanaugh asked doubtfully.
Joy swung his leg up and over the buckskin. ‘I was thinking about going into the shoe business, Ike.’
‘The what?’
‘It’s not a sure thing just yet, but I mean to give it a try. Besides,’ he said, ‘I’ve a borrowed horse I promised to return.’
With that Joe Sample nodded and rode out of the Double Seven yard on his buckskin horse, the gray trailing on a tether. Ike Cavanaugh removed his hat, scratched his shaggy head and got back to work.
ELEVEN
Flagstaff dozed in the golden glow of early morning light. Joe Sample was not the only person on the streets, but there were so few other citizens up and about that it was an almost eerie setting with the empty buildings, shuttered windows and unused plankwalks. Two of the saloons Joe passed were open. Apparently men drank at all hours here.
Joe’s first stop was at a stable. He did not know if it was the same one that the bay horse had been quartered in before. His buckskin too was a little trail-weary and ready to be groomed and fed. Joe left both horses in the care of the sleepy stable-hand and walked the familiar street toward Irma’s house.
He wondered exactly what there was to make him feel hopeful or even welcome there. She had taken in one more injured dog; perhaps that was all there was to it. On a whim and a hope he plodded on. There was always the excuse that he had come to tell her that he had returned her horse.
Joe’s leg had begun aching along the trail and now as he neared Irma’s house it started, as it always did, to stiffen on him. ‘I’m a wreck,’ Joe muttered to himself as he stopped in the shade of a large cottonwood tree to rub his leg.
There was a row of white picket fences in front of a dozen cottages that all appeared the same. He was wondering now if he could remember which house was Irma’s. He did know that she was an early riser, early to work and most of the cottages seemed to still be asleep. The third one along had a thin column of smoke rising from it and a lamp burned behind a window shade. Beyond it, the rising sun had started to turn from red-gold to white. It was going to be a hot day.
Joe stepped almost shyly on to the porch in front of the cottage, feeling like a schoolboy. He barged ahead, rapped on the door and had it opened to him. Irma had a pink wrapper drawn around her. Her hair was not yet fashioned. Her hand held a collection of hair pins. Joe swept his hat off his head.
‘Early, aren’t you?’ Irma asked, but there was a twinkle in her eyes as she scolded him. ‘Well, come on in. Go through to the kitchen. You know where it is. Pour yourself some coffee while I try to make myself decent.’ Irma looked down at herself and then vanished toward the interior of the house.
‘I brought your horse back,’ he said to the empty cottage. Receiving no answer, Joe Sample poured a cup of coffee into a blue ceramic mug and sat at the kitchen table. Carefully, he sipped at the strong brew, wondering about his own impulsiveness once again. He probably should not have come here, at least not so early, but it had seemed important. Along the trail all he could think of was seeing her once more, no matter how crazy his ideas were.
She appeared in the doorway while Joe was pouring himself a second cup of coffee. She had brushed her hair to a gloss and pinned it up. She wore a white dress with ruffles at the wrists and a red bow in her dark hair to match … Joe looked down, yes, she was wearing her little red boots. He smiled to himself.
‘Did I hear you say you brought my horse back?’
‘Yes. It’s at a place called Conklin’s. I didn’t know where you had it kept before.’
‘It doesn’t matter. Conklin’s is as good as any, I suppose. I’ll drop by after work and see to a long-term arrangement.’
‘That’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about,’ Joe said hesitantly. ‘A long-term arrangement.’
‘Why, Mr Sample!’ she said with mock astonishment. Joe flushed and replied:
‘Sit down, if you’ve got a few minutes, and I’ll tell you what I was thinking.’
Irma nodded doubtfully, poured herself a cup of coffee and sat opposite, facing him with her blue eyes alight. ‘Go ahead,’ she coaxed.
‘It’s like this. When I talked to you before you said your store wasn’t doing that well because of the location.’ Irma nodded, listening intently. ‘I can see that, and I have to also think that it’s partly because you only cater to the female trade.’
‘Yes?’ Irma said. Her eyes were questioning, partly amused, Joe thought.
‘Here’s the thing. I came into a little bit of money. Suppose I … you … we could find two small shops uptown in a better location. Next to each other, with you carrying on business as before while I had a stock of men’s boots and shoes? That way we’d have a better location and, say the whole family needed shoes, they wouldn’t have to shop all around, they could come to the one place and both men and women shop for boots.’ Joe felt his eagerness waning as he looked at Irma’s thoughtful face.
‘You as a shoe salesman, Joe Sample? It wouldn’t suit you for long.’
‘Maybe not, probably not, but after it was all set up I could hire a clerk if something more to my liking came along. …’
‘Are you doing this all for me?’ Irma asked.
‘Maybe … because of you,’ Joe replied, his eyes down on his coffee cup.
‘You know, they always tell you not to feed strays because they’ll keep coming back.’
‘You think it’s a crazy idea?’
‘I think it’s a fine idea – for me. I can’t see you wearing a town suit and selling boots.’
‘Truth is I’m not good for much else just now,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve been fooling myself thinking I can go back to being a working cowhand again.’ He lifted his eyes and his gaze met hers, ‘And, Irma, a man has to do something to make his way in this world. I’m willing to try it if you are.’
‘Willing to risk all your money on this, are you?’
‘At least then I would have something, wouldn’t I?’
Irma shook her head, ‘I’ll have to think about it, Joe. Right now I’ve got to think about getting to work.’ She patted his hand and rose. Just then there was a knocking at the front door. ‘What has made me so popular all of the sudden?’ Irma wondered.
She started that way and Joe followed, his hand automatically going to his holstered revolver. He heard a few muttered words from the porch and then Irma re-entered the house followed by a tall man in an ivory colored shirt, well filled at the shoulders. He wore a thin mustache and a US marshal’s badge on his vest.
‘Mr Sample?’
he asked. ‘Joe Sample?’
‘That’s me,’ Joe answered, glancing at Irma who shrugged.
Joe had seen the marshal before, at the courthouse. Maybe he had come to try to find out where Joe had gotten the stolen money from. Instead he asked:
‘Where’s Brad Tabor?’
‘Who?’ Joe asked blankly.
‘My deputy,’ Hugh Donnely said with that slightly cold tone lawmen adopt when they’re unsure of a situation.
‘I’ll make some more coffee,’ Irma said, scurrying off.
‘Let’s sit and talk, Marshal,’ Joe said. ‘As to where your deputy is, I haven’t the slightest idea. I’ve been out of town for a week and I only ever met the man once, in your office.’
‘He didn’t ride with you, then?’ Donnely asked.
‘No. Why would he?’ Joe asked.
‘I was told,’ Donnely said, glancing toward the kitchen where Irma was making busy sounds, ‘that you went down to the courthouse to try to return some stolen money – you thought it was taken by the Malloy gang.’
‘True. I did and handed it over to Deputy Tabor. He locked it up in your office safe.’
‘He did not!’ Donnely said sharply. ‘He hasn’t been seen for a week. I’m going to have to go out searching for him, though God knows where he is by now. It was suggested that you and he decided to ride out and split up the money.’
‘Hugh,’ Irma said quietly from the kitchen doorway. ‘I told you that makes no sense. A man who has all of the money doesn’t change his mind about keeping it all and invite a deputy marshal to be his partner.’
‘I know,’ Donnely said, rubbing his forehead with the heel of his hand. ‘It pains me – Brad was a fairly good deputy. I thought I could trust him to do right.’
‘Twenty thousand dollars is a lot of temptation,’ Joe said.
‘Yes,’ Donnely replied. ‘Still … I have to raise a posse, Sample. I don’t suppose you’d be interested in going along.’
Joe resisted the impulse to laugh. He shook his head. ‘I’m in no shape for something like that, Marshal.’
