Scent of Tears

by M. Juan Knecht

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Tiburcio was due to be hung. It shouldn’t have surprised me to find Lucinda walking out of the jail as I was walking in. I had read in the paper that there were hundreds of people going to the jail to visit the famous outlaw before his execution. To avoid the crowd, I had arrived early in the morning. Lucinda must have had the same idea.

  A shock always ran through my system whenever I saw her, and that morning was no different. My jealousy of Tiburcio was still bright though the judicial process was about to take care of any lingering concerns. It had been three years since I had helped Lucinda find her father’s gold. The years looked to have taken their toll. Her face looked drawn and her skin dull. She had lost weight. Her eyes no longer seemed to have the spark that distinguished her from everyone else.

  Lucinda seemed shocked to see me as well. She took a step back and regarded me. A smile came to her face.

  “Charlie, it’s so good to see you,” she said and held her arms up to be hugged. After a moment’s hesitation, I stepped forward and hugged her. She felt very thin and fragile, without the muscle tone I was used to feeling. Something else was different. The delicate veil of perfume she had always worn since our time in San Francisco was missing.

  “You are here to see Tiburcio? What a silly question. Why else would you be at the jail this early in the morning? He will be glad to see you,” she said. “Did you get my letter?”

  There had been a letter from her, but I had not opened it. I was trying to let the wound that had been my love for her heal. Reading a letter from her would have been the equivalent of probing a scar with a knife.

  “I have yet to read it,” I said, expecting some sort of cutting remark, and was amazed when she hugged me instead.

  “It is understandable. I am part of your past and that past wasn’t always happy. It is no matter. I am glad to see you. It is good you have come to say goodbye to Tiburcio. He will appreciate it.”

  “What do you have?” she asked looking down at the book I was holding.

  “A book of poetry. I thought it might lend some comfort to Tiburcio,” I started to say before they hang him, but changed it. “During his incarceration.”

  She stepped back and looked at me. Much to my amazement there were tears in her eyes.

  “I will be leaving for Lancaster in the morning. I don’t care to stay here and watch Tiburcio die. If you want to join me for lunch after your visit here, I am at the Rose Hotel in the downtown area. If you don’t, I will understand. However, I do have something for you I am sure you will like,” she said and stepped forward to hug me again.

  As she turned away and left me standing there, watching her go, it occurred to me that there had been no hint of her driving sexuality. Like the perfume, it seemed to have departed from her. Any other time in our history, if Lucinda told me she had something for me back at the hotel that I would enjoy, I would have known what she was talking about. This time, she looked and acted so differently, I was unsure.

  After three years in the Oregon high desert I felt like I was being drawn back into a vortex of the people I had known in Monterey. It was strange because I had not heard any news about anyone other than the often told and no doubt exaggerated stories of Tiburcio’s exploits as a bandit.

  Filling out the form to visit at the jailer’s desk, I put down “family friend”. I surrendered my side arm and received a receipt.

  Tiburcio was being held on the second story of the jail in a rather large cell. He was alone. A deputy stood watch at the bottom of the stairs. Another deputy was posted in the hall by the cell. The sheriff was taking no chances with a jailbreak. I was frisked as I walked into the hall leading to the cell. I handed my gift for Tiburcio to the guard to examine. He thumbed through it and then handed it to the bandit.

  “Charlie, how kind of you to come,” Tiburcio said and walked halfway across the cell before he stopped. “I wish I could offer you a glass of wine but they draw the line at having alcohol in the cell.”

  I smiled at his ever-confident demeanor and marveled at the flowers, baked goods and gifts people had brought him.

  “I would shake hands but the officer doesn’t like any contact between myself and my visitors. They fear someone will slip me a pistol.”

  He wore a white dress shirt and vest. His black boots were gleaming and his hair had been freshly barbered. He was also clean shaven and his beard recently trimmed. A portion of the Hispanic population considered him a hero rather than a criminal, and they voted in elections. The Sheriff must have wanted him to look well cared for in the newspaper photographs.

  “You look well,” was all I could come up with. I wasn’t sure how to make conversation with a man who was going to hang.

  “What brings you to San Jose?” he asked.

  “I came to buy some guard dogs for my sheep. We lose a great deal of the them to wolves and coyotes. I’ve come to buy a guardian from a man here who raises Great Pyrenees. Last night, I read in the paper that you had been brought from Los Angeles to San Jose.”

  “Here I thought you were a spade bit and riata man. Now you tell me you own sheep,” he said and laughed.

  “Sadly enough, that is true. As I get older, it comes down to whatever makes money,” I said.

  There shouldn’t have been any silence. I was looking at a man whose child I had helped raise, who had stolen my horses and who I had aided in escaping from the law. Enough history had passed between us for two hours of conversation. Still, I was at a loss for words.

  “How are you doing?” I finally asked.

  “I should have taken my Mexican holiday sooner. I am certain of that,” Tiburcio said with a thin smile. “Otherwise, I am being well fed, the cell is clean and airy. I have gotten to see many friends I haven’t seen in years who bring me baked goods and flowers and pressed shirts.”

  “What will happen to you?” I blurted out.

  “They will hang me. I ran with the devil for many years and had many adventures and now it is time to pay up. To tell you the truth, Charlie, I was starting to feel worn out. Sleeping with my hand on a gun and my horse saddled was getting old. The places where I have been shot become painful in cold weather. I would rather be hung by a Yankee Jury than go back to sharing a cell in San Quentin with three men and an army of rats and cockroaches.”

  “I am sorry,” I said, and truly, I was. Why, I didn’t know. Tiburcio had earned his way to the hangman’s noose. Still, we were childhood acquaintances from Old Monterey and our lives intertwined in so many different ways.

  “The newspaper men are after me to give an interview. Do you need any of that interview money, Charlie? I won’t need it where I am going.”

  “Many thanks but I’m fine. Have it put in an account for Patricio,” I said, thinking of his and Lucinda’s son. Tiburcio’s eyes widened and now, for a moment, he fell silent.

  “You didn’t hear?” he said softly.

  “Hear what?”

  “Patricio went out to feed the horses and mules in a wagon lot and was kicked in the back by one of the animals. The blow exploded his liver. Patricio is dead.”

  This news caused me to stagger. Lucinda had written me a letter no doubt telling me of his death. I had not opened it. I groped for the cell door and clutched it to have something to hang onto. The constable raised his shotgun in my direction.

  “When did it happen?”

  “Three months ago,” he said.

  Not knowing the right thing to say in a moment of grief was a major downfall of mine.

  “I must tell you something, awkward though it is. It is providence that you have come by to see me, because soon I won’t be telling anyone anything. I made love to Lucinda the one night at the race track in Monterey. I have never been with her since. She has told me how jealous you are of me and I want you to know it isn’t warranted. She has been my friend, and the mother of my son these many years but that is all there has been between us.”

  “Why?” I asked, not s
ure if I was asking why he was telling me this or why he hadn’t availed himself of her charms.

  “I sensed that further interaction with Lucinda would be bad luck. Women are not to be trusted. As you probably know, that is why I am here in this cell. An unfortunate situation developed with my niece. The girl’s father, who shielded and protected me, suddenly informed the Sheriff where I was hiding. I always knew a woman was going to be my downfall. I have been shot more often by jealous husbands than by lawmen.”

  “Lucinda always loved you,” I said, rather mystified.

  “Women can be perverse. Lucinda loved me because she couldn’t have me. I would only confess this to you, Charlie. I, the great Tiburcio Vasquez, was more than a little afraid of her. When she got in the family way, I never returned. After I was involved in the unfortunate death of the constable that terrible night in Monterey, I was branded an outlaw and could not go back. Lucinda Topo would never have been happy to ride the outlaw trail as I was forced to do. So, I never asked her. She felt I had dishonored her by not returning, regardless of the circumstances. At some time, in some awful way, she would have taken her revenge upon me for my disrespect. I am not comfortable making love to a woman at the same time I am taking inventory on the weapons in the room. You saw what she did to that lawyer in Monterey,” Tiburcio said in a low voice, looking for a moment in the direction of the deputy. “I also know about her killing that old blowhard, Tomasino.”

  I could only stare at him, thinking he was right about Lucinda’s temper. Then I thought of Patricio being kicked to death.

  “Did Lucinda see her son before he died?”

  “She was at the Monterey house when they carried him in. Patricio said he hoped the doctor wasn’t drunk that day and then his eyes closed. She was holding him as he died. I guess she was out of her head for a while afterward. Any mother would be. She wandered in the hills, without shoes and in a torn dress until one of the priests from the Mission found her and brought her to the church.”

  “I’m sorry for the loss of your son,” I said.

  “I heard he spent last summer with you in Oregon. I never got to know him. What sort of man do you think he would have become?”

  “He was charming and hated to get up early. He resembled his grandfather, Don Topo in stature. I know he had some of your character as well.”

  “How so?” Tiburcio asked. He rubbed his chest for a moment and I wondered if he was trying to ease the pain of hearing about his son or sooth old bullet wounds.

  “We were gathering some cattle at the base of a mountain. We were going down this narrow trail when I saw a bear cub run out from under a tree. About that time the cub’s mother rose up and roared. My horse bolted and took me under a tree limb. It knocked me out of the saddle and when I fell, the back of my neck landed on a rock. I was laying there, unable to get up. The bear was standing about forty feet away growling and slobbering for her cub.”

  “What kind of bear?”

  “I couldn’t say if she was a black bear or a grizzly. I only know she was seventeen feet tall and had fangs the size of a railroad spike. At least it seemed that way from where I was lying on my back.”

  “What happened to Patricio?”

  “His horse bolted down the trail. Patricio baled off and got his rifle out of the scabbard in the process. As I lay there thinking about being dinner for the bear, Patricio squatted down beside me and laid his hand on my shoulder. He asked if I was alright, and the bear started to advance. Patricio stood and commanded in the same voice I have heard you use when bending people to your will, “Go take care of your cub.” He threw in a few Spanish endearments just for luck, and that was what the bear did. She changed directions and walked to her cub. They disappeared into the trees.”

  “When you said he was like me, I thought you were going to say he stole livestock from the ranchos,” Tiburcio said with a sad smile.

  “No, I meant he was calm in a bad situation, that, being in danger didn’t rattle him. He was your son. He had your courage. I’m going to miss him.”

  “Why didn’t he shoot the bear?”

  “He said the bear was just worried about her cub. She didn’t mean us any harm. It that way, Patricio was like his Grandfather Topo. He had a generous nature.”

  Tiburcio seemed lost for a minute, steeped in sadness. After a moment, the face he showed to the world returned.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Bring me my Navy Colts and a fast horse,” Tiburcio said with a laugh. The guard again raised his shotgun.

  “Relax, hombre. A condemned man is allowed to make a joke,” he said.

  “I hope you like the book. I had better be getting back,” I said.

  “Adios,” I said and walked toward the stairs.

  “Let me share one other thing,” he said. I stopped and turned around.

  “According to what I am told, Lucinda suffers from the black lung.”

  “Tuberculosis? She has contracted the consumption?”

  “No one is sure, but as you observed, she doesn’t look well. One of her aunts told me she won’t go to the doctor. They won’t let her around the children. Her relatives don’t even like her to come into the family house, never mind that there wouldn’t still be a family house if Lucinda hadn’t intervened and figured out a way to pay the tax liens. She is sick, Charlie, though I doubt she will say anything to you about it.”

  Scent of Tears