Ralph Compton Slaughter Canyon (9781101559499)

by Compton, Ralph; West, Joseph A.

  “And if you don’t?”

  “Gangrene will set in very quickly and you’ll die.”

  Warful had been studying the man closely. Now he asked: “What is your name?”

  “Major David Solomon. I’m the regimental surgeon and I’ve performed amputations before. You will suffer little, I promise you.”

  “You’re a Jew?” Warful said.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Good. All the best doctors are Jews. Save my life, Jew. I’d rather have only five toes than die in this place.”

  The major seemed taken aback by Warful’s “Save my life, Jew,” but the look of surprise faded from his face and he told a soldier that he had to find an empty room for surgery. “I must operate right away,” he said.

  “That won’t be necessary, Major.”

  Colonel Blanchard, a massive, big-bellied man with a heroic mustache and full, muttonchop side whiskers, looked down at Warful with little interest and no pity.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  Warful, suffering now that the initial shock of his wound had worn off, said through clenched teeth: “My name is Hatfield Warful, an honest businessmen from the United States. My lady wife and I were captured by brigands and forced to sail—”

  Blanchard, his attention focused on something happening outside, was no longer listening.

  He said to Solomon in English, so that Warful could understand: “Patch him up as best you can, Major. I’d rather he stood to face the firing squad, but if not find a chair for him.”

  “Wait!” Warful yelled, biting back pain. “You don’t understand. I was taken by pirates and they threw my lady wife to the sharks. They were after treasure and forced me to ...forced me to ...”

  Warful’s words faded to a whisper, then died on his lips.

  Blanchard had already walked away and now stood, huge and terrible, over Battles and the two wounded gunmen.

  The colonel turned his head. “Major Solomon!”

  The doctor hurried to Blanchard’s side, his face worried.

  “These two, with the blood on their garments,” the colonel said, again using his excellent English. “What ails them?”

  “Chest wounds,” Solomon said.

  “Can they stand?”

  “Long enough to be shot. Yes.”

  “And him?” pointing at Battles.

  “He’s not wounded, sir.”

  “Then all three will face the guns.”

  Blanchard smiled at Battles. “I use English so that you’re all fully aware of the fate that is about to befall you.” He drew himself up to his full, impressive height. “Thus are you blessed by the justice of the French army and its sense of—what do the infernal English call it?—ah yes, fair play.”

  “You go to hell,” Battles said.

  “Antoine, please, don’t leave in anger.”

  Blanchard turned and his face registered shock. “Madame Poteet, what are you doing here?”

  “I was thrown out by one of your officers, but I managed to elude my guard.” Molly stepped beside Battles. “I came here with this man. We tried to stop Hatfield Warful’s attack on the palace.”

  “And the man you call Warful will die for that, never fear,” Blanchard said.

  “I couldn’t stop Warful’s men on my own,” Battles said, rising to his feet. “That’s why I fired on your tent. I couldn’t stop the attack, but your regiment could.”

  “Damn your eyes, man, that warrants a death sentence in itself,” the colonel said, his face burning. “You could have killed me.”

  “We had no other way, Antoine,” Molly said. “And even then, we failed to stop the bloodshed.”

  “What do you want from me, madame?” Blanchard said.

  “Release Mr. Battles into my custody.”

  Molly read the doubt in Blanchard’s face and said: “His is a little life, Antoine, hardly worthy of the notice of a great man. As a reward for your mercy, my gratitude would be”—she fluttered her long lashes—“limitless.”

  The colonel smiled. “Ah, madame, your eyes haunt my sleep at night and each glance you give me invades my tender breast. How can I refuse you anything?”

  “Antoine, you are a great soldier with the soul of a poet, a very rare combination,” Molly said, throwing back her shoulders and taking a deep breath to better display her considerable charms.

  “Yes, indeed, and now that France occupies the port of Eugene de Montijo, we will see much of each other,” Blanchard said, his eyes on the deep V of the woman’s cleavage.

  “And Mr. Battles?”

  “As you say, a little life. Take it.”

  “And the other two, Antoine?” Molly said.

  “Beware, madame,” the colonel said. “Perhaps you overstep and ask too much.”

  “I only ask that you spare their lives, nothing more.”

  “Then I spare them.” Blanchard’s eyes hardened a little. “Now, no more, and I trust our future relationship will be a bit more profitable for me.”

  “Depend on it, Antoine,” Molly said. “It will be.”

  Five minutes later Hatfield Warful was carried outside and shot.

  Chapter 53

  Broken Dreams

  “Joe Dawson and Sam Thorne were shot with him,” Battles said. “Major Solomon told me that Warful died cursing the Jews.”

  “And the other men?” Molly said.

  “Durango and Lon Stuart? They’ll hear their sentences tomorrow.”

  Battles poured himself another drink. He was a little lit up, and just beginning to feel it.

  “I failed at everything I tried,” he said, talking more to himself than Molly. “I continually got caught in my own loop, I guess.”

  “Warful is dead,” Molly said. “The slave pens are empty and all the Arab slavers upped sail and ran for their lives. Don’t beat on yourself so much, Matt.”

  “Things moved too fast for me,” Battles said. “Seems I never could slow them down.”

  He looked at the woman and smiled. “And you, Molly? What about you?”

  “I’ll go on. I’ll survive.”

  “The Arabs are gone. Who else will leave?”

  “Only the trash. Besides, now that Eugene de Montijo is French, I’ll have all the paying customers I need.”

  “Maybe you’ll get married?”

  “Maybe, but an American woman needs an American husband.”

  Molly poured Battles another drink, seeing that it was softening him, then a smaller one for herself.

  “I want you to stay, Matt,” she said.

  “Me, an innkeeper?”

  “You could do worse.”

  “Molly, I’m a peace officer. It’s all I know. It’s all I want to know.”

  “You’ll keep the peace here, at the Saracens Head.”

  Battles made an effort to hold tight to himself.

  “I’m going back to Texas,” he said. “Any way I can.”

  “Well, aren’t you going to ask the question?”

  “No. All you have to do is give me the answer.”

  “My life is here,” Molly said. “What would I have in Texas?”

  “Me. You’d have me. I mean, after all we’ve gone through together, I’ve grown to like you. You please me, Molly, like no other woman ever did.”

  “It’s not enough, Matt. Not for me.”

  Battles said: “We have time. We’ll talk about this later.”

  He knew and Molly knew that later would never come.

  “Yes, we will,” the woman said.

  A sense of loss, of loneliness, of the soon sadness of having to pick up the pieces of a broken dream, twisted inside her like a knife.

  That night Battles and Molly lay in a smooth-sheeted bed, both pretending to be asleep, listening to each other breathe, the ghost of what-might-have-been haunting their unquiet thoughts.

  Two days later Battles walked to the palace. When guards demanded that he state his business, he replied that he was there to visit the prisoners Durango a
nd Stuart. He was told to wait, and a grinning guard warned that he could be standing in the hot sun for hours.

  The iron cages were gone and what was left of Luke Anderson’s body now lay in a grave, known only to God and Colonel Blanchard.

  Battles was lucky.

  His wait didn’t extend more than five minutes because Major Solomon was still giving medical attention to the two wounded men and he ushered him inside.

  “Both your friends were sentenced to five years of penal servitude on Devil’s Island,” the major said. “Have you heard of the place?”

  Battles said he hadn’t.

  “Do not expect to see them alive again, monsieur. Many convicts land on Devil’s Island. Very few ever leave.”

  “It wasn’t worth it,” Battles said. “I mean, for Durango and Stuart and the others. The play wasn’t worth the price of admission.”

  “Dreams of buried treasure seldom come true,” Solomon said.

  “They had treasure enough in San Francisco, but wanted more. Warful was a convincing speaker and he filled their heads with nonsense.”

  “Hell has three gates,” the major said. “Lust, Anger, and the busiest of all, Greed.”

  “They didn’t shoot you like they did the others, huh?” Stuart said.

  He and Durango were confined to a cell in the palace basement, and a massy iron door clanged behind Battles when he entered.

  “No,” Battles said. “I got lucky, I guess.”

  “Did you hear our sentence?” Durango asked. “Five years on the rock pile.”

  “On Devil’s Island,” Stuart said. He smiled. “I was raised in hell and now I’m headed back to hell. I’ve come full circle. Now, when you think about it, that’s damned funny.”

  “I came to wish you men good luck,” Battles said.

  “Wish it, then,” Durango said.

  “Good luck,” Battles said.

  “Thanks,” Durango said. “Now get the hell out of here.”

  “Is there anything you need? Tobacco maybe?”

  “Only thing I need is tomorrow, and the day after that and the day after that and so on down the line for the next five years,” Durango said.

  “I don’t like you, Durango,” Battles said. “But what you’re facing I wouldn’t wish on any man.”

  “Get out of here, Matt,” the breed said. “I’m getting mighty tired of looking at your long face.”

  Battles said to Stuart: “Good luck, again.”

  The Texan smiled, showing his teeth. “There is something you can do for me.”

  “Anything I can.”

  “If you get back to the U.S., pick up my horse in Santa Fe. I set store by that sorrel, so keep him for me ... until I ... until whenever.”

  Battles nodded. “You can depend on it.”

  “Good. Now beat it. You always did talk too much, Battles.”

  The marshal glanced from one man to the other, their eyes fixed on him, but not seeing him, as lifeless as the painted eyes of china dolls.

  “Good luck,” Battles said again.

  He walked to the door, banged on the iron for the guard, and it creaked open for him.

  “Don’t forget the horse, Marshal,” Lon Stuart called after him.

  Chapter 54

  The Last Good-bye

  “They did all their moaning and screaming at night,” Captain Miles Adams said. “Real strange not to hear it now.”

  “Better the silence, I think,” Battles said.

  “Strange thing is, when they were packed in the slave boat like herrings in a barrel, they never made a sound,” Adams said.

  He turned down the corners of his mouth. “Maybe they were too scared to holler.”

  “Those days are over now,” Battles said.

  “Could be,” Adams said. “But who can trust the French?”

  The captain poured Battles a rum. His cabin was hot from the noonday sun, and the air smelled of the spices, ivory, and sandalwood in the hold.

  “I guess Molly told you that this schooner is bound for New York Town?” he said.

  “It’s close enough,” Battles said. “And I don’t have to go around the Horn again. And meet that damned Argentine frigate.”

  “The Argies haze you, huh?”

  “Took pots at the Lila with their cannon.”

  “They will do that if they think there’s cargo on board worth confiscating.”

  Adams poured more rum for both of them.

  “When you reach New York, you can catch a train for Texas,” he said. “But that takes money, riding the train.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “Molly paid your fare,” Adams said. He leaned forward across his desk. “I took you on as a favor to Molly, but the truth is I need seamen, not passengers.”

  The captain was a big man with a bruiser’s broken-nosed face, but his blue eyes twinkled with good humor.

  “Here’s a go,” he said. “Suppose you work your passage? You can keep the fare money and I’ll pay you seaman’s wages for the duration of the voyage.”

  Battles smiled, sipped his rum.

  “I’m not much of a sailor,” he said.

  “Me and my first mate will show you the ropes,” Adams said. “We’ll make a topman of you in no time.”

  Battles didn’t have to think twice about the captain’s proposal.

  “It’s a deal,” he said. “I surely need the wages.”

  “Then welcome to the Shenandoah.”

  Adams looked over Battles from his hat, then, bending over to look under the table, his boots.

  “You can’t work in them cowboy duds,” he said. “Outfit yourself from the slop chest,” he said. “Somebody will show you what you need.”

  Battles felt a subtle change in Adams’s tone, a shift from captain and passenger to captain and crewman.

  He rose to his feet.

  “Thank you for the opportunity, sir,” he said. “I won’t let you down.”

  Adams smiled. “I know you won’t. You come highly recommended.”

  He pretended to busy himself with a paper on his desk.

  “We sail with the tide, but you’ve got time to say good-bye to Molly. I understand she’s grieving something fierce.”

  “I’ll miss you, Matt,” Molly said. “I’ve only known you a short while, but sometimes a week or two can seem like forever.”

  “I’ll miss you too, Molly,” Battles said, meaning it. “I’ll miss you in the day and at night. Especially at night, hearing you breathe while you’re asleep. It’s a woman sound and it soothes a man.”

  He stepped across the floor and looked out the parlor window.

  “I sail with the tide.” He grinned. “Hell, listen to me, I sound like an old salt already.”

  Battles turned, faced the woman again.

  “Please come with me, Molly,” he said. “We can get married on the boat. Captains can do that, I’m told.”

  Molly shook her head. “Nothing’s changed from the last time we spoke, Matt. I can’t leave with you.”

  “Can’t or won’t?” Battles said.

  “Both, I guess,” Molly said.

  “Would it help any if I said I was sorry?” Battles said.

  “Sorry for what? Some things just don’t pan out the way we want them to. No, telling me you’re sorry won’t do any good.”

  “I’ll write,” Battles said. “Send you the money I owe you.”

  “There’s no need,” Molly said.

  “But still, I’ll send it.”

  A silence stretched between them; then Battles said: “Our talking is all done, isn’t it?”

  The woman nodded. “Every word. Seems like.”

  “Maybe you’ll come to Texas one day. To El Paso, maybe. In the spring when it’s green.”

  “Maybe one day. When I’m old.”

  “You’ll never be old.”

  “Then, maybe one day.”

  Molly looked at Battles. “You’d better go, Matt. Captain Adams won’t wait for you.”
<
br />   “I have to go back. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “You’ve made your decision and shaped your destiny, Matt,” Molly said. She held out her hand. “Good luck. In all you do.”

  Battles took it. “And you too, Molly.”

  “Take care of yourself, Matt Battles.”

  “Yes, and you do the same.”

  Battles walked out of the Saracens Head for what would be the last time in his life.

  The good ship Shenandoah lay at the dock and her captain was already on the quarterdeck.

  Afterword

  Matt Battles spent two months on the Shenandoah and to his surprise found he had a natural affinity for the sailor’s life.

  Captain Adams told him he was the best topman he’d ever sailed with and begged him to accept a mate’s berth, but Battles refused.

  “Well, if you ever change your mind and want to sign up for a trip back to Eugene de Montijo ...”

  “I’ll be sure to let you know,” Battles said.

  He had enough money to ride the cushions from New York to Santa Fe, where he got Lon Stuart’s horse out of hock.

  That the livery stable owner needed a little persuasion of the work-hardened-fist kind to release the animal was convincing proof to the marshal that he had indeed returned to civilization.

  He bought a Colt revolver, a secondhand and much-worn Winchester, and lit a shuck for Texas.

  Seeing El Paso again after such a long absence brought a lump to Battles’s throat.

  It was good to be home again.

  Battles sent wires to Washington, to his superiors in Fort Smith, and to Governor Roberts, informing them of his return to the fold.

  After a month, he still awaited an answer.

  “You bought a beer, Marshal,” the Acme Saloon bartender said. “That qualifies you for a free lunch.”

  Battles smiled and picked up his mug. “How long have I been nursing this?”

  “About an hour, I reckon.”

  “It’s warm. The beer, I mean.”