“Alf thinks we should fire him,” Chaffee told Cuttrell.
“Wilson Harrell agrees.”
“Where is Harrell now?”
“He is arranging the transfer of the deed of the J Cross T to Jasper Montclair.”
“And that’s the last piece Montclair is waiting for?”
“So he says. He is already the biggest landowner and most successful rancher in the area, and he has been very generous with all of us. Now he will be the biggest in the entire Arizona territory, and I expect that his generosity will only grow with his wealth and influence.”
“So nothing can stand in his way now,” Cuttrell said. “Why are you worried about Bringloe?”
“I do not like surprises,” Maier said. “At my store, I stock my shelves carefully. I try to carry the goods people will want, but not so much of anything that it spoils before it can be bought. I try to run all my affairs that way. The unpredictable worries me. Bringloe is unpredictable. We cannot know what he might do. We should fire him—at the very least—and appoint Kanouse in his place.”
“Kanouse is an idiot!” Cuttrell said again. This time he emphasized his statement by punching his left palm with his right fist.
“He is our idiot,” Maier countered. “That is the difference.”
Cuttrell rubbed his temples vigorously, as if suddenly aware of a pain there. “Fine,” he said after a minute’s pause. “Throw Bringloe down a well, for all I care. I don’t like Kanouse either, but if it’ll make you two stop yammering, I’m for it.”
* * *
Walking back to the fort, Cuttrell’s head was pounding. He had just agreed, with the other men who ran the town, to further consolidate Jasper Montclair’s power in the region. He had no clue what Montclair planned to do with that power, though the other men seemed to have some idea. All he knew was that, as Maier had pointed out, in the past he had been generous indeed.
Now, though, Montclair had taken his wife away. As with everything else about the rancher, the reason was a mystery. Cuttrell wanted to mount up and ride out to Montclair’s place and put a bullet in the man’s head. He liked the wealth Montclair threw his way, more than doubling his officer’s salary. And he liked the power he and the others wielded over the town, in part because they could judiciously spread Montclair’s money around and buy whatever favors they needed.
He hadn’t been much of a husband. But Sadie wasn’t much of a wife, either, between the laudanum she believed was a secret and the man or men who she slept with. Their identities, at least, were unknown to him, even if their existence wasn’t. Perhaps Montclair was one of them, after all.
His first thought, when Bringloe had told him that she’d left in Montclair’s wagon, had been to muster the troops and attack the Broken M in force. There would be a certain raw satisfaction in bringing down the wealthiest man in the area, simply because he was that. And because, as long as he shared his wealth with Cuttrell, the colonel was under his thumb. He was bought and paid for, and there might never be a better opportunity to break free.
Upon further reflection, though, he came to realize that he didn’t want to break free if it meant giving up the largesse he had been enjoying. Although he had gone into the meeting not sure of where he stood, by its end he had agreed that every effort should be made to protect Montclair’s plans, whatever they were. They would put a man who Cuttrell wouldn’t trust to walk his dog, if he’d had one, in charge of enforcing the town’s laws. They would increase their wealth and their standing in the community, and if the community grew, their power would grow with it.
It was a hell of a bargain to make. But they had all agreed, and they’d made it.
When he reached the fort, he sent a runner to find Ezra Hannigan. Then he sat in his office, alone, his head in his hands, until the captain knocked on his door. “You sent for me, sir?”
Cuttrell raised his head slowly. “Dismiss the men,” he said, his voice hoarse and gravelly.
“I’m sorry, Colonel?”
Cuttrell cleared his throat and said it again, louder.
“Dismiss them? How many?”
“All of them.”
“Sir?”
Cuttrell roared his answer. “I said all of them!”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are not required to, Captain. You are only required to follow orders.”
“Yes, sir.” Hannigan snapped off a salute and spun on his heel.
Cuttrell knew it was an extreme measure. It might affect his standing with the men, and if it got back to Richmond, it might cost him his career.
But if he had troopers at his disposal, he would be tempted to use them. Already he was second-guessing his decision. Perhaps he should have made the other call, let love for his wife overrule his love for money and position and power.
He had not, however, made that choice, and it was too late to change course now. Sending away his men was the safest thing he could do. With them gone, he couldn’t change his mind, and if he did he couldn’t do anything about it.
When you had abandoned your wife and sold out every principle you had once held dear, making sure you couldn’t take action against your own failure was, he believed, the best thing you could do.
* * *
Tuck had taken the map off the wall and spread it on his desk. With a pen, he marked the locations of the incidents he had read about in the Epitaph, as well as he could estimate considering the newspaper wasn’t always as precise as it might have been. He added the place where they’d fought Daisie’s killer, and the approximate location of the mule train slaughter.
When he was finished, he pressed it flat with his palms and looked at it from arm’s length.
The marks made a half-circle. At the center of it was Jasper Montclair’s ranch, and behind that, the uneven fringe of the Huachuca Mountains.
He wasn’t sure yet what that meant. But he was convinced that it meant something.
And he intended to find out what.
Chapter Forty
Carmichael’s only hotel was the Grand, which was far too ambitious a name for the place the sign hung on. The lobby was small and crowded, the ceiling low, and it smelled like a chamber pot and a spittoon had been combined and then poured behind the walls. The rooms were not much better. Wilson Harrell dropped the Tibbettses and Cale there with the few bags they had packed at the house. The boy had ridden the whole way with one arm wrapped around his saddle, as if it were the last friend he had. Maybe it was. Once they were inside, Harrell turned the wagon around and headed out of town again. He had allowed them too much time to pack, and had underestimated how long it would take to get back into town from their place.
His day wouldn’t be finished for hours yet. His task wouldn’t be done until he had delivered the deed to Jasper Montclair. That meant heading back out into the high desert valley where the ranches sprawled. He hoped the rain would hold off, because a storm could mire his wagon for hours. And Montclair had made very clear his insistence that he needed the deed today, as early as he could get it.
The route to Montclair’s spread was a familiar one he had driven many times, though the last time had been several months ago. The ground along the way was hard-packed and rutted from wagon travel, except where passing herds of cattle had roughed up the road and obliterated all else, or flash floods had washed the path away. Harrell was heartened by the fact that the clouds were holding off. Lightning splintered on the southern horizon, but that was well into Old Mexico.
He knew when he reached the outer edge of the Broken M. Montclair didn’t fence his land, but at the property’s boundary he had built stone markers that flanked the roadway on either side. The banker had seen them dozens of times, but had never before noticed how much the round stones resembled human skulls, dulled and dirtied by time. He twisted around in the seat for a better look, but the horses had already carried him far enough past that even in the afternoon sunlight, he couldn’t get a clear view.
Beyond that
point, the road continued the way Harrell was accustomed to. It cut between two low hills and then dipped to slice across a rocky wash. On the other side a steep grade rose up through a cholla forest containing hundreds of the short, many-armed cacti. They looked fuzzy from a distance, and sunlight glowed through their apparently soft thorns, but nobody petted one more than once. After that, the way leveled out and made a wide, sweeping curve toward the southwest and the particularly deep, shadowed canyon that sliced into the Huachucas behind Montclair’s house. The road would bend and curve many times before the ranch headquarters, but Harrell always felt, when he reached that point, that he was almost there. The journey was largely flat from that juncture, the mountains growing nearer, and it was a particularly lovely stretch of country. Harrell felt almost at peace, for the first time that day. He would deliver the deed to Montclair and be done with the whole business.
He eyed the cholla with suspicion. Fist-sized, thorny balls of it had a habit of seemingly leaping out onto the legs of passersby, and a horse’s hoof could kick a wayward one into the footwell of a wagon. But when he passed through the densest stand of it and into the open country, mentally ready for the landscape to open up into that heavenly view, he was surprised to find that the road hooked off to the east.
“No!” he said aloud, surprised that his memory could prove so faulty. “No, this isn’t…”
He let the sentence trail off. There was no one there to address it to but the horses, and they didn’t care what he had to say. They followed the road without comment.
Harrell thought that perhaps he’d been momentarily confused. He had let his mind wander, and he wasn’t precisely where he had thought. He would spot something familiar in the next couple of minutes, reorient himself.
Instead, the road circled around toward the north—the direction he had come from. He knew that wasn’t right. Sweat began to gather under his arms, tickling his ribs. Had he somehow turned onto the wrong road? That must have been it. He half stood in the wagon, scanning for any landmark he recognized, until its rocking motion nearly pitched him out.
Sitting quickly, he slowed the horses while he assessed the situation. He might well be lost if he kept going on this path. He needed to backtrack, follow the road to wherever he had made the mistake.
Convincing the horses of that took some doing. On the narrow road, there wasn’t room to make a forward turn. The brush, mostly thorny mesquite in this area, with low beaver-tail cactus packing the space around it, was too dense. Harrell got down out of the wagon and half walked, half pushed the animals into backing up, then coming forward a little, then back again. Each time they went backward, the wagon threatened to capsize. As he worked them, the sun kept lowering toward the west, and he was beginning to fear that he would still be out here after dark, trying to find his way along a road that had suddenly become unfamiliar.
Finally, he had the horses turned around, headed the way they had come. He climbed back into the seat and encouraged them onward. Around the long curve, down through the cholla forest and the wash, between the hills—sometime before that, there had to be another spur, the one he had missed.
But when he rounded the curve, he found, instead, a narrow, rutted track that led straight in a southerly direction. The plants on either side were even more menacing here; reaching into the roadway with thorn-covered arms.
Harrell stopped again. This wasn’t possible. He had just come this way. Only it hadn’t been the same. Not twenty minutes had passed. He stood again, turned this way and that. Nothing looked familiar, except the changeless mountains he couldn’t seem to reach.
He sat on the bench, gathered the reins in his trembling hands, and tried to remember how to pray.
* * *
Cale had no money for his own hotel room, but the Tibbettses, ever generous, had said that he could sleep in theirs for as long as he needed. He appreciated the gesture, and he would have to accept their offer or sleep in the streets. But he didn’t want to be a burden; he would find work as soon as he could and get out of their hair. In the meantime, he wanted to let them have the room to themselves as much as possible. They were grieving, as surely as anyone who’d had a death in the family. They needed their privacy.
He spent some time on Main, wandering up one side and down the other, peering into shop windows at things he would never own. Townsfolk passed him by, some saying hello or touching their hats, others ignoring him.
Finally, he had seen all he could stand of that street. He stepped off the boardwalk near Senora Soto’s and walked down Maiden Lane, toward the south. He knew Senora Soto’s was a brothel, and there were three more in the other direction on Maiden Lane, north of Main Street. He had no interest in seeing those women or hearing the things they would call out.
Over by the Methodist church, he stopped again. On the slope below the church was a cemetery, most of the graves marked with wooden crosses or slabs. He wondered how so many people could have died already; the town wasn’t that old, after all. There was a Catholic church on the other end of town with its own graveyard, and the fort had one, too.
In the last few days, Cale had seen more death than in the rest of his life all together. He had thought about it more, too. What it meant. What it was like. He didn’t know if the churches were right, and he could expect an eternity in torment and flames, or—unlikely, he knew—to be sitting on clouds, strumming a harp and grooming feathered wings.
Most of the people he had known well, his fellow hands from the J Cross T, were dead. He hadn’t wondered, until now, what would become of them. Would someone haul them into town to bury in one of the graveyards? Who would have the unpleasant duty of cleaning out that bunkhouse? Probably Montclair’s boys, he guessed. If it were left to him, he would set a torch to the thing and burn it down, bodies and all. No force on earth could make him go in there.
“There you are,” a gentle voice called from behind him. Cale turned to see Little Wing coming toward him, her hands held out at waist level. Her smile made her face seem luminous. “I was looking for you.”
“For me?”
“Yes, Cale.” He took a couple of steps toward her, and when she was within reach, his hands rose almost as if by their own accord to clasp hers. She squeezed tight. “I wanted to see you. I know about what happened at the ranch.”
“You heard already?” he asked. “How?”
She released one hand, and holding the other, led him away from the church and down behind the buildings on the far side of the alley. Cale noticed that the Apache scout was never far away, but he waited politely out of earshot. “I know,” she said. He noted her unusual phrasing, and chose not to pursue the question.
“I am sorry,” she went on. “I know those men were your friends.”
“Some of them,” Cale said.
“You knew them. You worked with them. It is hard to see those you know die.”
An image of the bunkhouse interior, seen through the open door, flashed through his mind. “It surely is.”
“I wish it had not happened.”
“So do I.”
“There will be more dying,” she said. Cale looked at her. She was staring at the ground as they walked, pointedly not looking his way. Her profile was lovely; her nose had the slightest upward tilt at the end, her chin was strong, her lips full and elegantly shaped.
“What do you mean?”
“More,” she said.
“You won’t…”
“I cannot say who. Only that the dying is not over.”
This time, he couldn’t help himself. “How do you know these things?”
“I cannot—”
“You cannot say! There’s a lot you can’t say, isn’t there?”
“I am sorry, Cale.”
He suddenly felt ashamed for having snapped at her. She was just being nice, and she was the prettiest girl he had ever known, and he had just about bitten off her nose. “No, Little Wing, I’m sorry. I don’t understand who you are, or what. I don’t
mean to be rude or impatient.”
“You hold no fault in the matter,” she answered. “I would tell you more if I could. Some I do not remember, and some is not meant for anyone to know.”
“You surely are a confusing girl,” Cale said. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”
“I am not sure there has ever been anyone like me, Cale.”
He was willing to grant that she was correct on that score, and was about to say so when she stomped in a rain puddle, splashing his legs with slick, runny mud. She had done it deliberately, angling her leg in to direct the splash toward him. She shot him a mischievous grin.
“What’d you do that for?” he asked.
“Because I could.”
“How’d you like it if I did it to you?”
“You would have to catch me first.” With that, she spun away from him and took off at a sprint, laughing.
Cale hesitated, still surprised by her sudden attack. Then her laughter and the way her body moved as she ran dug hooks into him, and he gave chase.
Little Wing ran away from town and into open desert. Afternoon sun picked out individual leaves and thorns, bathing them in a golden glow that made the landscape sparkle. Cale had seen the effect many times. Usually he just saw it as a nuisance, because it meant the sun was on its way down to where it would be in his eyes. Today, though, he was so enraptured by its beauty that he lost track of Little Wing.
A peal of laughter revealed her hurtling alongside an arroyo, dropping into it when she had to avoid a thorny bush growing too near the edge, then popping out again on the other side. He raced toward her, cutting a diagonal path, sometimes leaping over low brush. Once a thorny branch caught his leg and he tumbled over, catching himself on hands and knees. Palms stinging, he lifted his head and saw Little Wing standing nearby, wearing an expression of concern. When he laughed and vaulted up, she darted away again.
Finally, he outpaced her as they climbed a rock-strewn slope. She seemed to be getting winded, although when he grabbed her arm and pulled up beside her, she broke into laughter again, bending over, hands on her thighs, in sheer merriment. Her cheeks were slightly reddened, but Cale was panting from exertion and she was breathing normally.
Deadlands--Thunder Moon Rising Page 24
