Santa Fe Showdown

by Jory Sherman

  “Oooh, you’re giving me the chilblains, Lew.”

  “Sometimes, I think he’s in the same room. That walk of his, and it’s as if I can hear him breathing like when he would come in to my room at night after I’d gone to bed and he wanted to see if I was asleep or say good night. It’s a genuine feeling. I know he’s there. Maybe his spirit, I don’t know. But he isn’t. He isn’t there. And he never will be.”

  “That’s so sad, Lew.”

  He got up from the table as if to shake off the emotions that gripped him.

  “I’m going to bed, Marylynn. I want to get an early start.”

  He yawned and stretched his arms.

  “I hope tomorrow never comes,” she said, in a dreamy voice.

  “It will.”

  “I don’t know what I’ll do without you. No one to talk to. No one to see after me…”

  “You’ll do fine. I have some advice for you, though. If you’ll take it.”

  He turned from the window and looked at her. There was an eagerness in her expression that made him think of a dog wagging its tail, begging for any scrap of attention.

  “Yes, I will,” she said.

  “Sell that big Colt .45 and get yourself a smaller weapon, a pistol that feels light in your hand. A Smith & Wesson .38, maybe, or a Lady Colt, a .32 caliber. That gun’s too big for you. And wear dresses that don’t get in your way when you have to run from trouble or draw that pistol from your purse.”

  “Do you think I’m going to be like you?” she asked.

  “Like me?”

  “Always on the run. Always facing someone who wants to kill you.”

  “No, I don’t think that.”

  “You sound like you do.”

  “I’m tired. I’m going to sleep.”

  “I’ll sit up awhile. I want to think about tomorrow. And the day after.”

  He didn’t remember her coming to bed, but sometime during the night, he felt her arm across his chest, and then she was stroking the side of his body with the other hand. He felt her unbuttoning his trousers, and he didn’t stop her. He heard the rustle of her clothes as she took them off, heard the faint sound of cloth striking the floor.

  He knew there was no escape. If nothing else, Marylynn was persistent. He submitted to her, and wound up helping her. Her eagerness became like a contagious fever, and he got caught up in her passion. They made love in silence, except for her moans of pleasure and his own long sigh when he reached the summit. She dug her fingernails into his back and the stars whirled in the sky outside their window until he floated back to earth, sated, his senses drugged to a peacefulness that was almost beyond comprehension. He held her in his arms. Her body quivered as if she was weeping, and he thought perhaps she was, whether out of gratitude, relief, or sorrow that this might be their last time together.

  He slept and his dreams were fraught with scenes and images that baffled him. He rode into barren canyons that opened into great gorges that were impassable, and he climbed into complicated terrain where every trail was blocked by more canyons and deep, brush-choked gullies. And when he found a way out, he ran into steep sheer bluffs that rose to the sky and barred him from passage. He awoke in the morning wringing wet from sweat, and for a long time he lay there, wondering where he was.

  Then he touched the bare skin of her back and heard her purring breath and knew she was still fast asleep. She reeked of the musk of their lovemaking, and yet her hair was scented like lavender or lilacs, and in the light, her face of repose was beautiful beyond words.

  He slid from the bed, tiptoed around the room. He dressed but kept his boots off, carried them from the room along with his rifle and saddlebags. Marylynn did not awaken, and he felt like a thief leaving her like that. But he knew if he didn’t leave now, he never would. Before he closed the door, he almost went back, but steeled himself and shook his head.

  When he got well away from the room, he stopped and put on his boots, leaning against the wall so that he didn’t lose his balance.

  He woke up the young Mexican boy who was sleeping in the stables on a pile of straw. The boy, whose name was Eladio, lit a lantern so that Lew could see to saddle Ruben. Lew tipped him a silver dollar and rode out onto the dark street. He rode past the Tecolote, with its wooden owl over its name on the false front, saw that it was quiet, and continued on toward the center of town. A dog barked at him and he saw dark cats slinking across the street and in between the buildings. Somewhere in the distance a cock crowed and a few people showed up on the street, walking to destinations he could not fathom.

  He looked at the hotels along the way, then made a circle, riding two blocks off the main road from the east and then circling back until he was in the vicinity of the Tecolote. He looked at the hotels and filed their names away in his mind. He continued his circle to the other side, looking for both hotels and a nondescript livery stable where he could board Ruben and walk to the Tecolote.

  He found a hotel a block away from the cantina, on the corner. It was aptly named El Rincon, and it was plain, drab, and cheap. He tied his horse to the hitch rail and walked into an empty lobby. There was a small bell on the counter, and he picked it up and jiggled it. The small tinkle brought a stirring from behind the closed door and a moment later a man emerged, tugging on his suspenders.

  His shirt was wrinkled and his thinning hair disheveled. He was in his fifties, a wizened man whose eyes were rheumy and laced with red veins. He reeked of cheap whiskey and stale beans.

  “A buck a night, six dollars the week, four bits for a bath, six bits gets you a shave. A dollar six bits gets you a night woman if you don’t mind Mexes.”

  “Just a room,” Lew said, plunking three silver dollars down on the counter. “And maybe you have a stable out back, or nearby?”

  The man looked up at him, shoved the ledger toward him, and cocked a thumb in the direction of the inkwell and pen.

  “You ain’t runnin’ from the law are you, mister?”

  “No. Why?”

  “We get owlhoots in here now and again, and the law takes a dim view of us harborin’ criminals. They come by ever’ once in a while.”

  “Well, I’m about as unwanted as you can get, if that’s any help,” Lew said, cracking a smile.

  “We got a little ol’ barn out back, you’re right. But you better tote your tack inside your room. Mexes steal anything what ain’t nailed down.”

  “What about my horse?”

  “They hang horse thieves hereabouts. Your horse will be safe, I reckon.”

  The clerk made change. The coins jingled on the counter.

  “The name’s Lester,” the clerk said. “I’m here sometimes. When I ain’t, you got to get by until I get back. They’s a privy out back and a pump for your water. You better walk your horse back to the barn. We had a pilgrim ride his back twixt the buildings and the horse spooked, kicked holes in the adobe. I hate to patch adobe. It’s like tackin’ jelly to a wall.”

  He handed Lew a key.

  “You got room five,” he said.

  Lew thanked Lester and led Ruben back between the hotel and the pawnshop building next door. The barn was adobe and smelled of dried alfalfa and fermenting corn. He unsaddled and laid his tack out to carry to his room through the back door. He put the horse in an open stall, slipped a halter over his head, and tied the end of the long rope to a post. The horse could move around in the stall and go out, but he wouldn’t wander far. And he probably wouldn’t get tangled up in the rope. The other stalls were empty, which probably meant the hotel had only him for a guest.

  The room was Spartan to an extreme, but it would do, Lew thought. It had a rickety table and a rattan chair to sit in, a cotlike mattress on a bunk frame. Bare walls, a night jar, an empty pitcher and tin cup, and a clay ashtray. The tabletop was marred with cigarette burns, and the flimsy curtains were dusky with smudge and smelled of stale smoke. The window looked out onto the building next door, an adobe with pocked blemishes he assumed were made by a
panicky horse’s hooves.

  He set his saddle, bridle, saddlebags, and rifle on the floor at the foot of the bed and sat on it. The mattress was stuffed with cotton or some other material that was lumpy. The sheets, at least, were clean, and smelled of lye soap.

  Lew took off his hat and sailed it onto one of the lumpy pillows. He rubbed his forehead and took in a deep breath.

  He looked around the austere room and thought to himself that this was about as far down as a man could get. He had been a fool to leave Marylynn, but he couldn’t drag her into his life, a life on the run from the law. He hoped Lester wasn’t poring over wanted flyers and putting two and two together. He’d hate to be dragged off to jail or shot for bounty.

  This was the kind of place where a man could drop out of sight. He had only one worry at the moment: Charley Grimes. He was likely somewhere in town, and probably keeping an eye out for Lew, to collect the reward. He’d have to deal with Grimes sooner or later.

  And somewhere on his backtrail was the U.S. marshal, Blackhawk. If Lew stayed too long in Santa Fe, Blackhawk was bound to catch up with him. But there was Wayne Smith to deal with, too, unless the marshal had captured him in Denver. Smith had a lot to answer for.

  He scolded himself for having such thoughts. Why couldn’t he just let the world run itself, while he made his way in it? He wasn’t the law, and he wasn’t a vigilante. Leastways, he didn’t think he was.

  But there was something in him that drove him to right wrongs. His own experience, perhaps. A sense of justice, honed to a fine edge. Smith was really none of his business. And neither was Grimes, unless he called him out. He should just ride on, disappear, and let whatever law there was take care of those outlaws.

  That’s what he should do, Lew thought. And knew.

  But that’s not what he was going to do. He had to know if Smith had gotten away with his robbery in Denver and if he was going to show up in Santa Fe.

  He owed Carol that much, he thought.

  And maybe he was a vigilante. He was vigilant, that was for sure.

  If he wasn’t, he knew he would be dead.

  14

  IT FELT GOOD TO WALK AGAIN, TO USE MUSCLES IN HIS LEGS THAT had softened some from days on horseback. He walked all around Santa Fe, looking at the people and the shops, the busy stores, the vendors and the buyers. By day, the city pulsed with commerce. Everyone he saw seemed to have a purpose, all seemed bent on doing business, buying or selling. The carts were laden with everything from firewood to furniture. He saw silversmiths and whiskey drummers, jewelry makers setting turquoise stones in bracelets and necklaces, potters at their wheels with the smell of wet clay heavy on the air when he poked his head inside their shops, weavers weaving blankets and serapes and scarves, Indians selling beads and moccasins on street corners, painters setting out their canvases on homemade wooden easels, scribes sitting in doorways near the telegraph office, and butchers batting away flies from the fresh meat on their sturdy blocks.

  He heard half a dozen languages, including Spanish and German, English, French, and dialects he could not identify. None paid him any attention, and he thrived on the anonymity, was able to study faces and watch the pretty Mexican girls dance, clap his hands with the rest of the throng, and throw coins on a brightly colored blanket while fiddlers, guitarists, and drummers made music that rang and throbbed with the very heartbeat of the city.

  He saw charros riding fine-blooded Arabian horses, sitting on silver-studded saddles. He ate spicy adobo and refried beans wrapped in flour tortillas, bought from a boy carrying a cloth-covered basket, and he tasted chocolate that nearly made him giddy with its aroma and flavor. He drank lemonade that cooled him and made his mouth pucker with its sour tang. He tried on turquoise and silver rings and saw handmade boots with their fine tooling that made him regard his own and wonder if he should splurge and buy a pair.

  By early afternoon, the pace slowed and many of the shops closed so their owners could take their siestas, and a drowsiness came over him, and a loneliness that was nearly unbearable. He thought of Marylynn and Carol and Seneca, and walked back to his shabby hotel just so people could not see the sadness on his face, nor detect the sorrow inside him for all that might have been, and all that never was.

  He slept away the afternoon at his hotel, lulled to sleep by the buzzing of flies, the rumble of carts out on the street, and the mud daubers building a nest outside his window. He slept and dreamed and woke up soaking wet with sweat and felt his beard, which had grown thick and unruly. He wished he could shave it off, but knew he should not. He washed his hair and trimmed it with a straight razor, left his beard to its own shagginess, and bathed in cold water in a tub, scrubbing himself with lye soap and holding up browned hands, looking down at a prison-pale body floating in grimy suds.

  He wondered what Marylynn was doing as he dressed and looked out at the puddles of shadow beginning to form on the wall of the pawnshop next door. He tried not to think of her as he cleaned his pistol and oiled the action, slid six cartridges back into the cylinder, practiced his draw for two minutes, and then put polish to his boots and had to wash his hands once again.

  He filled an empty flour sack he had in his saddlebags with grain left over from the trip, and he left his room, locking the door.

  It was just coming on dusk when Lew walked out the back door of the hotel to check on Ruben in the barn. Crickets sawed their fiddles in the grasses around the barn, and the sky was smeared with smudged clouds banked like the dead hulls of ships against the dark shore of the sky. A faint glow pulsed behind the Sangre de Cristos, salmon and peach coals on a dying fire.

  Ruben whickered when Lew entered the barn, and another horse stuck its head out and bleated a long rippling whinny, a small dun that was still wet from being ridden hard. Lew studied it for a moment in the dim light, but did not recognize it as any horse he had seen before. He could not see its brand, but he would remember the horse if he ever saw it again. Its mane was cropped short, and its topknot bobbed. Its ribs were starting to show, and when he lifted its left forefoot, he saw that the shoe was worn down to a thin slice of iron.

  The horse had been ridden a long ways, he decided, and was too tired to eat or drink. He patted its withers and saw to Ruben, found that he needed fodder for the night. He emptied the sack into his feed bin and hung it, empty, on a peg outside the stall. Ruben bent his neck and began feeding. Lew filled the water trough from a bucket he found out back next to a rusty pump.

  When he returned the empty bucket, his boot struck something that didn’t feel right. It wasn’t a rock or a stick or a dirt clod, but something yielding like a toadstool or a puffy plant. He looked down and saw a scrap of cloth—canvas, it looked like. He bent down and picked it up. It had writing on it, and as he started to stand up straight, he saw something shiny a foot away. Curious, he stepped over and touched the object. He hefted it and saw that it was a metal bar. It was smooth, but had lettering on its face, lettering that was stamped in. The bar was silver. He stuck it in his pocket and held the scrap of canvas up. He saw the words “Bank,” “Denver,” and “Leadville.” It was, he knew, from a bank bag.

  The heavy canvas was grimy, clogged with dirt. The silver bar weighed at least six ounces, he figured.

  Someone carrying that bag had snagged it on something and torn a hole in it. The bag had probably been filled with silver bars. Most of those may have fallen to the ground. Whoever had picked them up had missed one, and probably ground the scrap of canvas under his or her boot while picking up the silver bars.

  Lew wondered if the dun horse was connected to the bag scrap and the bar of silver.

  He walked back to the barn.

  He spoke to Ruben and looked at the dun horse again. He figured it hadn’t been there ten minutes before he’d come inside. The horse had been unsaddled, but showed no sign of a rubdown, no trace of a brush or curry comb. Someone in a powerful hurry had put the horse up, slipped a halter on it, then left the animal to fend for itself.


  None of his business, he thought. But he couldn’t walk to the Tecolote carrying a silver bar and that scrap of canvas.

  Lew returned to his room, put the bar and piece of bank bag in one of his saddlebags, then walked to the front.

  A man stood at the counter, signing the ledger. He looked up as Lew passed by, then turned his attention back to the clerk.

  The look had been brief.

  The man’s face was powdery with dust, his beard at least a week old, and a large sweat circle blackened the left side of his shirt. His boots were dusty, too.

  And Lew was sure he had seen the man somewhere before. But where?

  Lester looked at Lew in recognition, nodded to him.

  “To answer your question, Mr. Baker,” Lester said, “Mr. Moon said he’d meet you at the Tecolote Cantina after you got in. Do you need directions to find it?”

  “Naw, I know where it is,” Baker said, shoving the ledger toward Lester.

  “That’ll be five bucks,” Lester said.

  Lew heard the clank of silver dollars on the counter. So Baker was going to stay a few days, Lew thought as he walked out onto the street.

  The horse at the hitch rail was lathered. Ropes of foam hung like dirty braids from the horse’s neck and chest. It was heaving, its sides expanding and contracting like a blacksmith’s bellows, wheezing noises issuing from its throat. Across the street, standing in the shadows, was another man, holding his horse. He had a sawed-off shotgun in his hand, his arm dangling by his side. Lew couldn’t see his face. The man didn’t move. He just stood there, and Lew thought he must be waiting for Baker, had probably ridden in with him. He glanced at Baker’s saddlebags, saw that they were bulging, and that from one of them, a scrap of canvas poked out. It looked like the same kind of canvas Lew had stashed away in his room.

  He walked to the corner and turned toward the Tecolote, his mind racing. Had he seen Baker someplace before? There was something familiar about the man.

  Leadville? Pueblo? Somewhere else?

  He didn’t recognize the man’s face. But there was that feeling of recognition that he couldn’t shake.