Death Comes

by Sue Hallgarth

  Spud loved gardening and so did his cat Barney, a soft-haired calico who presented him with kittens once a year. Spud let her wind about his feet and paw the loose dirt. She never failed to help him in the garden and otherwise perform daily guard duty in the courtyard. No squirrels allowed, no birds to steal seed, no mice to slip into the house. Spud let his fingers trail through her fur. Her purr settled his nerves and hers. She curled into a ball then rolled onto her back and stretched all four legs as far as they would reach. He could stroke her belly without fear, she was telling him. At least for the moment, he grinned and found her soft spot. Her purr swelled in response.

  Sunlight dropped low on the adobe wall behind the tomatoes. Spud rose to wash up and change into a clean shirt and trousers. He had only one good dinner jacket, so whatever else he chose had somehow to match. But it didn’t matter. He had very few choices. And tonight, he thought, he would put on a festive shirt and tie and hope for a celebration. Red River couldn’t possibly be all that bad and he would be happy if Mabel just brought everyone home safe before dark. He looked forward to a good meal and conversation with all of Mabel’s guests, especially Agent Dan. Spud hoped Agent Dan would be able to tell them much, much more about the criminals they were all willing to help him catch. Spud was ready for a roundup.

  Mabel hit the brakes so hard Agent Dan flew forward against the dashboard. Willa and Edith managed to brace themselves against the seat backs in front of them or, Edith thought, they might really have been hurt. All this because of some madman hopping around in the road ahead of them. An idiot in a cowboy hat and boots but no horse in the middle of nowhere. He stopped hopping and stared at them. He had a shaggy blond beard and a noticeable scar that ran across his forehead and disappeared behind his right ear.

  “Get bucked off?” Mabel tried to be solicitous.

  The man bent down to pick something up from the road. Then he stood and put it in the holster strapped loosely around his hips. Edith recoiled. It was a gun.

  “Are you injured?” Agent Dan followed Mabel’s lead.

  “Nah,” the man answered, “but my damn horse ran off.”

  “Perhaps I can ask the sheriff to drive out to help you,” Mabel offered.

  “Don’t want help.” He glared at the four of them.

  “As you wish,” Mabel’s voice retained an odd kind of sweetness. She put the car in gear and drove off. No one said a word. Edith turned in her seat and saw the man sit down again in the middle of the road. Dust from their car billowed around him.

  “Well,” Mabel broke the silence. “What do you think that was about?”

  “Probably just what he said,” Agent Dan replied. He once again held his hand against his ribs. “But that doesn’t explain the gun.”

  “Maybe he tried to shoot his horse. You know, to make him stop,” Mabel suggested with a laugh.

  “Didn’t work, I’d say,” Agent Dan grinned. “Hard to miss a horse, though. Must be a bad shot.”

  “He certainly was hopping mad,” Willa chuckled in agreement.

  “Should we have tried to give him a ride?” Edith worried aloud. “It’s a bad time of day to be out here alone with no horse.”

  “He’ll be all right,” Agent Dan said softly. “It’s not too far to walk to town, and he clearly wasn’t in a mood to be friendly.”

  “He didn’t seem like the friendly type,” Mabel agreed. “More like dumb and dangerous.”

  “Thank you for not picking him up,” Willa said.

  “Might be a good idea to send the sheriff out to give him a ride, though,” Agent Dan chuckled. “If he’s just dumb he won’t mind. And if he’s dangerous, well, the sheriff should be able to handle that.”

  “I didn’t like the looks of that scar.” Willa paused. “Or the gun.”

  “He’s the sort who probably spends a lot of time in Red River, wouldn’t you say?” Edith was curious.

  “Seems likely,” Mabel nodded.

  Edith frowned. The truth was they had no way of knowing whether this was the sort of man who frequented Red River. In fact, they still knew very little about Red River and even less about the men and women they saw there. The women, Edith paused to repeat the words to herself, the women. She could see them clearly in her mind. Mexican women, similar in age and costume. It was pretty clear what they were doing in Red River. But how did they get there? Edith couldn’t even begin to guess. She closed her eyes and leaned the back of her head against the seat. Too much, she sighed, this is all just too much.

  “What’s that ahead?” Willa’s voice brought Edith back to attention. They could see a young man jogging about a quarter of a mile ahead. When he heard their car, he cut off into the sage and ducked out of sight.

  “Good question.” Agent Dan rolled down his window.

  “What is that man doing?” Mabel slowed the car.

  “Another man without a horse or car in the middle of nowhere?” Edith shook her head. “Do you think there’s any connection with the scar-faced man?”

  “Does this one have a gun?” Willa shaded her eyes as if the young man were still visible.

  “I didn’t see a gun,” Agent Dan shook his head. “Could have one holstered, though. Care to stop for a minute?”

  “Are you sure you want to stop?” Mabel asked.

  Agent Dan nodded, “Yes. Maybe if we do, he’ll come out.”

  “Depends on why he hid, wouldn’t you say?” Willa kept her eyes on the nearby sage.

  “Yes.” Agent Dan nodded again. “Yes, it does.”

  XVI

  SPUD FIRST CHECKED the dining room. Neither Tony nor the Fechins were there, despite the fact that dinner was long overdue. Amelia could tell him nothing he didn’t already know, but she smiled reassuringly and offered to feed him right away if he was hungry. He wasn’t. He was still far too worried about everyone in Red River to pay attention to his own stomach.

  Not knowing quite what to do, he walked out toward the barn. Perhaps Tony was there since Mabel had taken his car. Passing the pink adobe, Spud paused to reflect on how quickly everything changed once Willa and Edith arrived. It seemed as though nothing would ever be done about any of those murders, but within a week of their arrival, Willa and Edith had turned everything upside-down.

  And Agent Dan. He arrived just six days ago. No telling what he might have turned up left to his own devices, but getting wounded near the hunting camp Willa and Edith discovered had spurred everyone into action. Well, not quite everyone, not the sheriff. Nothing seemed to spur him into action. Still, Spud thought, perhaps his own fears were premature. Red River had been fairly quiet lately and most murders probably took more than seven days to solve. A lot more.

  Tony was nowhere to be found at the barn, but old José was happy to have someone to talk to. Spud leaned against the corral fence while José carried hay from the barn and placed it in small piles for the two horses to munch on. “Many little piles keep them from fighting over one large one,” he nodded to Spud, who smiled in reply. “Just like children, they are, or very bad men,” José grinned. “They are the same.”

  “Greedy guts,” Spud laughed.

  Spud hadn’t talked with José since he asked him to pick out a horse and mule for Adam to take to the Lawrence ranch. José had been happy to oblige and even took time to coach Adam about how to handle Smokey and use a packsaddle. Adam knew a fair amount about riding already. José said he picked Smokey and the mule because they were best friends, so Adam should have no trouble keeping the two of them together. Spud hoped that was the way it had worked out.

  Spud had been to the ranch a few times and called it “a rustic’s rustic,” a place that he told Mabel would probably go on forever but seemed always on the edge of falling apart. She had laughed and said that’s why it suited Lawrence. With tuberculosis, he too was on the edge of falling apart. But she hoped the mountain air would help his lungs and the amount of physical exertion the ranch required could help him rebuild his strength. Spud remembered the ranch as
needing more work than any one man, especially one weakened by tuberculosis, could handle. Even Adam, strong young man that he was, might have trouble. But Adam needed a place to live and the ranch needed someone to keep it going. Spud was pleased that he thought of matching the two together.

  “You hear from your friend? Did he make the trip okay?” José carried a bucket of corn from the barn to scatter for the chickens outside the corral. They followed close on his heels, and while the hens ran from one kernel to the next, clucking and chasing after each other, José slipped into their coop to search for eggs. Spud followed and José began handing him eggs.

  “I haven’t heard a word, but I think no news is good news, don’t you?” The eggs were so plentiful Spud began to slip some into his pockets just to have a place to hold them.

  “Good news is better when you hear it,” José handed Spud a bucket.

  “Well,” Spud emptied his pockets, “you haven’t seen Smokey or the mule heading home, have you? That must mean Adam made it okay,” he teased. “Of course, given the state of the fencing up there, those two might just decide to bring themselves back at any time.”

  “No, no!” José laughed. “La mula stays where there is grass. Smokey, too. The ranch has lots of grass.”

  Spud’s mind went to the lush meadow spilling through the clearing below the ranch house. It was a beautiful field and gave way to views of more mountains in the distance. Higher than Taos, the ranch provided cool shade among ponderosas and, where there were no trees, held amazing vistas. Adam must be loving it. The perfect place for an artist and the animals that took him there.

  Spud was about to answer José when his train of thought was interrupted by the sound of hooves behind him. More than one horse, he counted hoof beats, though whoever it was wasn’t yet visible and was coming at a much faster clip than anyone should on this lane.

  “Runaway?” José spun around and stepped out of the chicken coop.

  “Whoa!” Spud followed and found himself pinned against the corral fence holding his bucket of eggs, with la mula on one side of him and Smokey on the other. Smokey reared once but neither animal offered to move away once they reached the fence. José appeared on the other side of Smokey, grabbing for the reins of yet another horse, a horse Spud had never seen, who was plunging and rearing against Smokey’s hindquarters. José jumped up and down in rhythm with the plunging horse and finally caught the reins.

  But Spud hardly noticed. With so much excitement, all he could think of was how to get out of the way and keep his eggs unbroken. He ducked under the mule’s neck and climbed the corral fence until he reached the top, where he could step over to the other side. A mistake, he quickly realized. The horses inside were suddenly on him, milling about and pushing against him to greet the newcomers. It was all Spud could do to hang on to the top rail and edge away from the crowd one foot at a time.

  Adam planted his face hard against the sandy soil. His right hand buried itself in dirt against a tall cholla cactus. His left remained under the sage he hoped would keep him hidden. He couldn’t see the car, but he heard it stop and he heard a door open. Someone, a man, called “hello” as if it were a question. Then another door opened and a woman called out, “Do you need help?”

  Adam wished the voices would go away. Maybe if he didn’t move they would. But then, he reasoned, maybe they wouldn’t. Maybe they would think he was hurt and really did need help. Maybe then they would walk out to find him.

  “Hello?” the man called again.

  Adam pulled his hand away from the spines of the cholla and propped himself on his elbow. He still could see nothing, but the voice seemed closer. It was not a voice he recognized. Blade’s voice he knew. And he would never forget the sound of the men who called out Blade’s name in the middle of the night.

  “Do you need help?” The woman tried a second time.

  Adam dropped down. The woman’s voice also seemed closer. No, no, he didn’t need help. He just needed to find Maria, whose blue-shirted figure racing away on the mule still filled his mind. He had run maybe three miles before slowing to a jog. He found it hard breathing at this altitude, but the road had given him better traction. He wasn’t sure how far he had jogged, but he guessed that Maria was not far ahead. It couldn’t be long before the mule and Smokey — and now Blade’s horse with them — would tucker out and stop. He was sure of that. He was also fairly certain that Maria was still astride the mule. He had seen no sign of her, either lying on the ground or walking, and she had not answered when he shouted her name.

  “Hello,” the man’s voice said again. This time it was directly overhead.

  “You do need help,” the woman declared.

  Adam groaned. He rolled away from the cholla and onto his back. Two people stood above him, a tall man wearing a suit and tie and a well-dressed woman with intense blue eyes. She was staring at him with alarm.

  “Can you sit up?” the woman asked.

  Adam groaned again. The man reached down and grasped his arm.

  Once on his feet, Adam realized how he must appear. He knew he had a large bruise on his right shoulder, but they probably couldn’t see that. His shirt was still intact. He was aware that his pants were ripped at the knees and, now that he was taking inventory, he guessed he must have a black eye. When he touched his fingers to the right side of his face, it felt raw and swollen all the way to his hairline. Wow, he thought, that nasty slide after he hit the ground had done some real damage after all. Until this moment, he had felt no pain. Now he winced.

  “What happened, son?” the man asked, his voice soft.

  “My horse dumped me and ran off,” Adam confessed.

  “Come,” the woman said. “Let us give you a ride. Maybe we can find him.”

  “Which way did he go?” the man asked.

  “You’re headed in the right direction,” Adam leaned on the man’s arm. He could see the car waiting for them on the road. “That’s the way to Taos, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” the woman assured him. “We’ll see about catching your horse and drop you off at Doc Martin’s.”

  “Oh no, I’m fine,” Adam insisted. “Just a little winded. I’ll find him. I can keep walking.”

  “No,” she said, “you’re coming with us. I insist.”

  Once Spud inched along the fence to a place of safety he jumped down and grabbed what was left of Smokey’s reins. Smokey must have stepped on them and broken one in half, Spud guessed before realizing how odd all this was. Smokey wore only a bridle, while the mule wore Smokey’s saddle with a halter and lead rope. The strange horse with them had both saddle and bridle but no rider. And Adam was nowhere to be seen. “What on earth?” Spud finally said out loud. “Where did these animals come from? And where’s Adam?”

  “Something is wrong.” José tied the new horse to a nearby hitching post and loosened its girth. “Very wrong,” he repeated and came back to get the mule and Smokey. He unsaddled the mule and took her with Smokey to the corral where he turned them loose. The excitement over, the mule and horse immediately dropped their heads and began to munch on hay. “Very wrong,” José repeated again, shaking his head. He made a little pile of hay next to the hitching post where the new horse could reach it, and what had been chaos settled into a comfortable munching sound.

  “What do you think we should do?” Spud felt completely flummoxed. He had no idea how to respond to this crisis and now it seemed to be over. But it wasn’t. At the very least, they needed to find out what happened to Adam.

  “Look,” José held up a skirt and blouse. He had undone the bundle tied behind Smokey’s saddle.

  “What on earth?” Spud stared.

  “We backtrack.” José draped the clothes over the hitching post where the new horse couldn’t reach them and started walking down the lane.

  “You think we can find Adam?” Spud hurried to catch up.

  “Don’t know.” José picked up his pace. “May need to saddle a horse. Don’t know how far.”
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  Spud shaded his eyes to look down the lane. He saw nothing unusual, but a short distance ahead the lane took a sharp turn around a building, so the two kept moving at a fast walk.

  “Look.” José saw the body first. It was sprawled in the lane face down not more than ten feet beyond where the lane turned. One arm was flung out at an odd angle, the other was folded under the body.

  For a minute Spud thought it was Adam. Adam had been wearing a blue shirt and jeans when he left for the ranch. But as they drew closer, Spud could see dark hair flowing over the blue collar. It wasn’t Adam.

  “Horse must have spooked.” José got the words out despite his lack of breath. They were both running now.

  The body lay still, but as they drew closer Spud heard moaning. A woman’s moans, though how could that be? No woman he knew would wear a blue shirt and jeans.

  When Spud reached the woman, he did not touch her but instead knelt next to her and asked in English whether she could turn herself over. Her moans increased in volume and she opened her eyes but did not move. José asked the same question in Spanish and this time she raised her head. But still she did not move. What they could see of her face was badly bruised, and blood trickled from the edge of her mouth.

  “Me lesioné el hombro,” she whispered between moans.

  “Injured her shoulder,” José told Spud. “Help me turn her to free her arm, then we’ll see if she can sit.”

  “Let us help you,” he touched her shoulder. She flinched.

  “Déjanos ayudarte,” José repeated the offer of help in Spanish. She nodded and made an effort to help, tensing her muscles and holding her breath.