This Violent Land

by William W. Johnstone

  Holloway nodded. “I understand. I don’t like the idea of using a badge just for vengeance, but I certainly can’t complain about the way you’ve treated the job so far. You’ve been more than willing to take on any task I set for you. Anyway, since Sheriff Murchison has asked for our help in finding those same men that you’re looking for, we can’t exactly call it vengeance, can we?”

  Smoke smiled. “No, sir, I guess we can’t.”

  “I’ve been thinking about this, and I almost hate to offer it to you, for fear you’ll take me up on it. But you’ve certainly earned the right. How would you like to be a deputy emeritus?” Marshal Holloway suggested.

  “A deputy what?”

  “A deputy emeritus. Emeritus is what you call somebody who is retired, but has maintained the title and the authority. I think something like that is used mostly for college professors, but I don’t know why I can’t use it for you.”

  “I’ll be. I’ve never heard of that word.”

  “I think it would fit your situation perfectly. Basically, what it will do is give you the freedom to go or do what you want, while keeping your badge, and if I ever have anything specific that I want you to do, I’ll find some way to get in touch with you.”

  “Wait a minute, are you telling me that I don’t have to report to you, but I can still have the authority of being a deputy U.S. marshal?”

  “Yes.That is exactly what I’m telling you. That is, if you would like to do that.”

  Smoke gave it only a moment’s thought. “Yes. I think I would very much like to do that.”

  “The only thing about this kind of position, Smoke, is that you would no longer be on the payroll except when you are actually engaged in an official and specific operation.”

  “That would be fine by me, Marshal. I appreciate you doing this for me.”

  “Where do you plan to go first?”

  “I’ll probably go back and check in with Preacher. Maybe stay around for a year or so.”

  “You mean you’re going to give up looking for those three men you’ve been searching for?”

  “I’m not giving up, exactly, I figure they’ll still be out there when I’m ready to start looking for them again. But Preacher isn’t getting any younger, and truth to tell, I don’t know how much longer he’s going to be around. He’s the closest thing to family I’ve got. And I’m more than likely the only family he’s ever had, so I’d like to spend some time with him. I’ll never let him know that, though. He’d be so embarrassed he’d probably run me off.”

  “I wouldn’t doubt that for a minute,” Holloway said with a little laugh. “All right, take a year, eighteen months, two years if need be. The badge is yours to keep, and anytime you’re ready, come on back and I’ll find something for you to do. You take care of that old man now, you hear? He’s as much a part of this territory as the Rocky Mountains themselves.”

  “I will, Marshal. And thanks again for doing this for me.”

  Bury

  Sally Reynolds sat primly in a chair at a meeting of the school board.

  “It has been reported, Miss Reynolds, that you have been seen keeping company with Janey Garner and Flora Yancey,” the president of the school board said with an ominous frown.

  Sally nodded and said simply, “Yes.”

  “Yes?” The school board president’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead like a pair of bushy worms. “You mean you don’t deny it?”

  “Why should I deny it?”

  “Do you not feel a sense of shame for keeping company with those people?”

  “No, why should I feel shame? Miss Garner and Miss Yancey are both friends of mine.”

  “But surely you can see the impropriety of that,” Mrs. Pinknell said, leaning forward and staring at her through a pair of pince-nez wire-rim glasses.

  “No, I cannot see any impropriety in that,” Sally said. “Janey and Flora are my friends. There are not that many women in Bury with whom I can be friends, and I feel very lucky to have encountered some unmarried women who are near my age, and whose company I find to be entertaining.”

  “It has also been reported that you have been seen going into, and leaving, the Pink House,” declared one of the male members of the Board of Education.

  “I sometimes go there to play whist with my friends.”

  “Miss Reynolds,” Mrs. Pinknell said. “Are you totally unaware of the profession followed by the young women who reside in the Pink House?”

  “I have been given to believe that they are prostitutes.” Sally raised an eyebrow. “Have I erred in that belief?”

  Sally’s frankness was totally unexpected by the members of the board, as they had thought she would dissemble and obfuscate.

  “Uh, yes, that is what they are. Do you see nothing wrong with that?” the board president said.

  “Well, it isn’t an occupation that I would care to follow,” Sally said with a slight shrug. “But then, neither would I want to be a lawyer, or a horse trader, or a pawnbroker.” She smiled, knowing she had named the occupations of at least three of the board members.

  Mrs. Pinknell glared at her and said, “I’m afraid that you are going to have to give up your friendship with these women or we will be forced to remove you from your position as a schoolteacher.”

  “All right,” Sally said.

  Mrs. Pinknell smiled triumphantly. “I’m glad you see it our way. Then we can be assured that you will no longer keep company with those women?”

  “No,” Sally replied. “When I said all right, I meant you can go ahead and remove me from my position as schoolteacher. I have no intention of turning my back on my friends.”

  “What?” Mrs. Pinknell gasped. “Miss Reynolds, you can’t be serious.”

  “Oh, but I’m quite serious. And, as I shall no longer be employed by the school board, I understand that I shall have to give up my quarters, so I will look for a new apartment immediately.”

  “Wait, now. Let’s not be too hasty here.” The president of the board held up his hand. “Give us a moment of deliberation, would you?”

  “Yes, of course.” Sally stepped out of the room for a moment.

  “We can’t ask her to step down,” he said to the others. “There is no way we could get a new schoolteacher for next year at this late date. It’s already March.”

  “But she has been seen in a brothel!” objected one of the others.

  The president frowned. “Who would know this, except habitués of such an establishment? I hardly think their opinion is valid. I say we let the whole thing drop.”

  “Well I, for one, am opposed to letting it drop,” Mrs. Pinknell said.

  The president sighed. “You’re only one vote. I say she stays, and I say we vote now.”

  An immediate vote was taken, and the outcome of the vote was to retain Sally Reynolds as teacher for the Bury Grammar School.

  * * *

  Janey laughed about it as she and Sally shared dinner that evening at the Gold Nugget Restaurant. “I would love to have seen the expression on that old biddy Hortense Pinknell’s face when the board voted to keep you on as teacher.”

  “Would you? Well, I can show you the expression.” Sally pursed her lips, squinted her eyes, and made wrinkles appear around her nose.

  “Stop!” Janey said, laughing even harder. “You should go on the stage. You mimicked her perfectly.”

  “You know Mrs. Pinknell, do you?”

  “Oh, indeed I do,” Janey said. “Sometimes I’ll have Mr. Jefferies drive down the street by Mrs. Pinknell, even if it is out of the way . . . just so I can see her stick her nose in the air. One of these days, she’s doing to do that and a bird is going to drop a little bird turd right in one of her nostrils.”

  Sally had just lifted a fork, but she had to drop it, she laughed so loud at Janey’s comment. “Oh, Janey, hush. You’re going to make me laugh so hard that the manager will come kick us out of here.”

  “No, he won’t. The PSR owns this restaurant. La
ugh all you want.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Preacher’s cabin

  The old man dressed in buckskin met Smoke at the door. “Damn, boy, this is the second time in the last three months you’ve showed up here. Are you tellin’ me I ain’t rid of you yet? I raised me a wolf oncet. Found ’im when he was a pup, I did. And when he growed big enough to take care of hisself, I set ’im free, but damn if he didn’t keep comin’ back. You ain’t no different from that wolf, ’ceptin’ at least there come a time when that critter quit comin’ around. When is that goin’ to happen to you?”

  Smoke chuckled. In the old man’s eyes and the tone of his voice, he could read the pleasure Preacher felt at having him back.

  “I figure I have to keep an eye on you, Preacher. You’re getting so old, I’m not sure you can even feed yourself, anymore.”

  “Don’t you worry about me feedin’ myself. If I have to, I’ll take a fish out of a grizzly’s hand, and you know I can do it,” Preacher said, continuing the banter.

  “I know that, old man. That’s why all the grizzlies steer well clear of you.”

  “What brings you back? Did you get fired?”

  “Sort of.”

  “How the blazes can you get sort of fired?”

  “I’m a deputy emeritus.”

  “Boy, how am I gonna know what the Sam Hill you’re talkin’ about, if you don’t speak English?”

  Smoke laughed. “Are you telling me that you don’t know what the word emeritus means?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I’m tellin’ you. I don’t have no idea what that word means.”

  Smoke shook his head. “Why, I thought everybody knew what that word meant.” He had to laugh as Preacher glared at his joshing. He defined the word, then explained, as Marshal Holloway had explained to him, how it meant he could keep the badge but was free to do things on his own.

  “Good, good. You got back just in time,” Preacher said.

  “Just in time for what?”

  “Just in time to move these half-broke horses we been gatherin’ to someplace where we can sell ’em. Especially since you ain’t gettin’ paid for wearin’ that tin star no more.”

  “What were you going to do with them if I hadn’t come back when I did?” Smoke asked.

  “I was gonna shoot ’em,” Preacher said.

  Smoke laughed. “Preacher, you can go to hell for lying as well as stealing, you know.”

  “Well, in that case, I’ll be among friends. I don’t hardly know no mountain man, from Jim Bridger to Pierre Gardeau to Kit Carson, who ain’t turned the air blue with their lies. Or did they turn it blue with their cussin’? I never could get that straight.”

  “Are we going to round up the horses or are you just going to stand here all day with your jaw flapping?” Smoke asked.

  “You’re the one doin’ all the talkin’, boy. Come on. Let’s get with it.” Preacher led the way.

  It had been Smoke who, some time ago, got Preacher interested in raising and selling horses. With the beaver pelt business no longer profitable, it hadn’t been that hard to talk the old mountain man into the idea. Since most of the horses were wild mustangs they had captured and penned, there had been very little financial investment in the business.

  Smoke had thought that the hardest thing would be finding and capturing them, but that proved to be less difficult than breaking them.

  * * *

  “You don’t want to break ’em all the way now,” Preacher said one spring day as Smoke got up painfully and started back toward the horse that had just thrown him. “You got to leave some spirit in ’em or they won’t be worth a damn.”

  “Yeah? Well, I’ll try and keep that in mind,” Smoke said with a grin that was more of a grimace as he returned to his task.

  * * *

  Their first trip to market a couple weeks later wasn’t nearly as much of a chore as he had assumed. They kept the number of mounts they were moving relatively small, no more than thirty, and the horses considered it more desirable to stay with their own, rather than wander off.

  * * *

  Several weeks later, Smoke and Preacher were pushing nineteen head of half-broken mustangs and sixteen head of Appaloosa south into the wild country. They crossed the Colorado River, then cut southeast.

  A few miles from the Dolores River the wind changed.

  Smoke lifted his head. “Smell’s like somethin’s burning.”

  Preacher brought them to a halt and stood up in his stirrups to sniff the air. “Yeah, somethin’ is burnin’, and there is more to it than wood. Take a sniff of that air, boy, and tell me what you smell.”

  Smoke tried to identify the mixture of strange odors as he bunched the horses. “You’re right, it’s more than wood. Leather and burnt cloth maybe? And . . . something else . . . something I can’t figure out.”

  Preacher’s reply was grim. “It’s burnt hair and flesh, that’s what it is. What do you say we put the horses in that box canyon over yonder, then go take us a look-see?”

  “All right,” Smoke agreed.

  After securing the open end of the canyon with brush and rope, the men rode slowly and carefully toward the smell of charred flesh, the odor becoming thicker as they rode. At the base of a small hill, they left their horses and crawled up to the crest. From there, they were able to look down on a scene reflecting the tragedy that had befallen the occupants of two partially burned wagons below.

  Tied by his ankles from a limb, and hanging head down over a small fire, was a naked man. Even from the distance, Smoke and Preacher could see that his head, face, and shoulders were little more than blackened meat. The mutilated bodies of two other men were sprawled out on the ground, and a third was tied to the wheel of one of the burned wagons. Like the man hanging by his ankles, all had died hard.

  “You said you heard gunfire about two hours ago,” Preacher whispered. “Turns out you was right. It was the damn Apache.”

  “Apache, up here? Isn’t this a bit north of their territory?”

  “Oh, they come up this far ever’ now and again. Most of the time so’s they can raid the Utes.”

  Appalled, Smoke whispered, “What were these people doing here in the first place? And how the hell did they get the wagons this far? There’s no road and very little open ground to speak of.”

  “Sheer stubbornness, I reckon. But I sure hope they warn’t no women with ’em. If so, God help ’em.”

  “I wonder if the Indians are gone.” Smoke looked around.

  “Yeah, they’re gone. If they warn’t I’d be able to smell ’em,” Preacher said.

  Smoke wasn’t sure whether Preacher meant they really could smell them or if that was just his colorful way of saying he would feel it if they were present, but knowing Preacher as well as he did, he was ready to believe that Preacher actually could smell the Apaches.

  “I think we should go down there and poke around some, then give those hombres a Christian burial. Maybe after we plant ’em, we can say a word or two.” Preacher spat on the ground. “Damn heathens.”

  They slid down the hill to the charred wagons.

  On the ground beside one, Smoke found a shovel with its handle intact. Taking turns, they dug a long, shallow grave, burying the remains of the men in one common grave. That done, they walked around picking rocks to cover the mound so as to keep wolves and coyotes from digging up the bodies and eating them. Preacher took off his battered old hat and stood alongside the grave. Smoke followed suit.

  Preacher began speaking. “Lord, from seein’ what’s left of a Bible that was here in one of the wagons, I know the fellers that was travelin’ in ’em was most likely good Christian folk. There ain’t nothin’ more we can do for ’em now, other than turn ’em over to you. Amen.” He put his hat back on and looked over at Smoke. “That’ll do it, I reckon.” He turned and walked the area, cutting sign, trying to determine if anyone got away.

  Smoke rummaged through what was left of the wagons and found what he didn’t
want to find. “Preacher!” he called.

  The mountain man turned back. Smoke held up a dress, then another, smaller than the first.

  Preacher shook his shaggy head as he walked back. “You found any women’s bodies?”

  “No.”

  “God have mercy on their souls, that means the Injuns musta took’em,” Preacher said, fingering the gingham. “They won’t kill ’em, but it’s goin’ to be a hard life for ’em. Any man that would bring a woman down here to this part of the country is a damn fool.”

  “Maybe the women got away,” Smoke said hopefully.

  “It ain’t likely. But we’ll take a good look.”

  Almost on the verge of giving up after an hour of looking, Smoke made one more sweep of the area. He saw shoe prints mixed in with marks and tracks. The prints were small—a child or a woman. He pointed them out to Preacher.

  “Good Lord! Them is women’s tracks! Mayhap she got clear and run away.” Preacher circled the tracks until he got them separated. “Don’t seem like they was followin’ her. Get the horses, son. If she’s gonna have any chance o’ survivin’, we got to find her before dark.”

  It didn’t take them long to track the woman who got away. They found her hiding behind some brush at the mouth of a canyon. Try as she could to be still, she gave away her position. Some of the branches of the bush where she was hiding showed movement.

  “Girl,” Preacher called to her. “You can come out now. You’re among friends.”

  Smoke could see one high-top button shoe. “Please come on out now. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  There was no response from whomever was in the bush.

  “Reason we’re tryin’ to get you to come out is we just seen a rattler crawlin’ in there with you,” Preacher lied.

  With a little gasp of alarm, a young woman bolted from behind the bush and straight into Smoke’s arms.

  Smoke had expected it to be a young girl, perhaps no more than eleven or twelve, but she was a young woman, at least eighteen or twenty. Her eyes were light blue, set in a heart-shaped face, framed with hair the color of wheat.