Night of the Cougar
Page 18
It was Bascombe who broke the silence. “Personally, I think we ought to forget the herd.”
“Have you ever stopped to think afore openin’ yer damned mouth?” replied Culhane sharply. “Barrington cain't call the law, ‘cause there ain't none. He might come after us hisself, but we'll be ready. I suspect he's worried we're a-gonna attack him.”
“What if he gets the army after us?”
“The army's too far away, but if yer afraid, just get the hell away from me. I'm a-gonna hire me some good gunhands, and then I'm a-comin’ back to kill that son of a bitch Barrington, his kids, his cowboys, burn down his house, and take his cattle and horses. I done come too far to give up now.”
“I need a payday myself,” agreed Curry. “And the army can go to hell, fer all I care.”
“What about you?” Culhane asked Dunphy.
“The way I see it, if we leave this herd, we'll just have to rustle another. There ain't no goin’ back now, boys. We're in too deep.”
Culhane asked for a voice vote, and they all agreed with his plan. They were the breed who'd do anything to avoid getting a job, or starting a business, and killing wasn't difficult after a man got used to it.
“Barrington is a dead man,” said Culhane as the sun made orange and purple streaks behind jagged black pinnacles to the west. “Only he don't know it yet.”
Dusk came to the desert, but Clarissa and her cowboys decided to press on to Whitecliff, figuring they'd arrive in another few hours. Their repaired wagon clunked and rattled behind them, and no one spoke, fatigued after a day in the saddle. Clarissa yearned for a hot bath, and perhaps a few hours on the piano. She hadn't dared bathe since her incident with the Indian, and relations were strained between her and the men, due to her embarrassment over nakedness.
She could never tell the truth to Nathanial, because he would fire all the cowboys, and perhaps shoot a few of them, or be shot himself. As a married woman, she knew there were items she dare not tell her husband, so she and her cowboys shared a nasty little secret.
Suddenly, as if in a dream, she heard the voice of her husband: “Halt—who goes there!”
The others heard it too. “Blakelock and yer wife!” shouted the foreman.
A cheer erupted out of the night, her husband's voice loudest among them. Then he and his cowboys advanced out of the darkness, on foot and armed with rifles, smiling happily.
Blakelock said, “What's the hell're you doin’ hyar?”
“Lookin’ fer rustlers!” replied Manion.
Nathanial ran to his wife, lifted her out of the saddle, and embraced her warmly. “Miss me?”
She laughed. “Why should I miss you, when I was surrounded by wonderful men?”
Nathanial was startled by her statement, and further noticed that her cowboys appeared happy. Blakelock climbed down from his horse, his black eye shrouded in the dimness. “What rustlers?”
Nathanial explained the hectic day while Clarissa hugged the children, noting both had been scratched and bumped rather severely, but they were armed, calm, ready to fight.
“Think the rustlers'll be back?” Clarissa asked her husband.
“Yes, and there'll be more next time.”
They formed a single column and rode back to the main ranch buildings, the wagon dragging behind, full of supplies and jugs of whiskey. Nathanial led the way, relieved that his cowboy force had increased, with Clarissa on his right and Blakelock to his left. “Well, how was the trip?” he asked his wife.
“There was a fracas at the Fort Buchanan general store,” she replied. “Every one of our men was involved, including our esteemed foreman.”
“What you saw in that general store,” replied Nathanial, “is nothing compared to what's coming here, because those rustlers aren't the kind who forgive and forget. Do you think she'll make a good soldier, Blakelock?”
“I can't say, but whenever she pulls that gun of hers, she scares the hell out of me.”
“I've threatened to kill all of them,” bragged Clarissa, “but we actually enjoyed many good times together, although they insulted, humiliated, and terrorized me at every opportunity, and generally made my life miserable. All things considered, next time I'll remain at the ranch, if you don't mind.”
The People made camp beside a spring, cooked meat, and prepared for bed. They would sleep in the open, covered only by blankets and the stars. Guards were posted, and when two riders approached out of the darkness, it was assumed they were friends. As they drew closer, it was noted that one was Chuntz, slumping in his saddle, and the other Loco, the scout who had found him.
Two warriors lowered Chuntz to the ground. He was conscious, but had lost much blood and his leg appeared infected. “Pindah cowboys,” he wheezed.
“Why didn't you see them first?” asked Chief Man-gas Coloradas.
“I do not know,” lied Chuntz, because he couldn't admit he'd attempted to steal a Pindah woman.
“Were they Sunny Bear's cowboys?”
“I did not ask—it happened so fast. Where are you going?”
“To Sunny Bear's ranch.”
Chuntz was shocked. “For what purpose?”
“To council with him.”
“But his bluecoat soldier friends visit him there!”
“We will watch for them, but first, Nana will treat you. When he is finished, you will return to the main camp, because we do not want conflict between you and Sunny Bear.”
Chuntz was carried to the fire and laid on his blanket. Then Nana mixed ground leaves with water and sacred pollen. He applied the mixture to the wound. “I am surprised at you, Chuntz,” he said. “You should not have let the Pindahs come so close.”
Chuntz drank medicine, then fell into a deep trance. He imagined the Pindah woman in the stream, moonlight illuminating her creamy flesh. I have failed again, thought Chuntz. When will I ever win?
Chuntz wasn't the only loser in America during the summer of 1858, because near Saint Louis, working in his father-in-law's general store, was an ex-army officer who had failed at everything, including feeding his family. Were it not for his in-laws, they all would have starved long ago.
Yet citizen Sam Grant was a West Point graduate, had served with distinction in the Mexican War, and had been stationed at Fort Vancouver in Oregon Territory, where he couldn't bring his family. Like many officers, he'd invested in land, saloons, mines, and other businesses, but unlike them, he failed at everything, turned to drink, and finally had been thrown out of the army for inebriation on duty.
Since then he'd tried farming in Missouri, but went bust. Then he sold firewood on the sidewalks of Saint Louis, but found too much competition. He'd joined his brothers-in-law in the real-estate business, but fell short at that also. Now he was a common shopkeeper, weighing coffee and beans, cutting bolts of cloth, and measuring customers for boots.
Business was slow in the store, because everything former Captain Grant touched turned to disaster. Sometimes, sitting alone behind the counter, he thought himself a jinx. He had paraded on the plain at West Point, but then sank into poverty, mediocrity, and shame.
The store sold whiskey by the pint, and often he felt like drinking himself into a stupor, but somehow managed to restrain himself for the sake of his family. He felt worthless, stupid, demoralized, and suicidal. Sometimes, when no one could see him, he cried tears of pain and remorse.
But somehow he was unable to extinguish the ambition that had carried him through West Point and the Mexican War, and it irked him to know that former West Point classmates had become high-ranking officers, while he swept the floor of his father-in-law's store. If only I could get another chance, he told himself one day, sitting alone behind the counter. But I'm thirty-six years old, all played out—my life is over. I had my chance and drank it away. Oh God, prayed former Captain Sam Grant. Please give me another chance, so I can make Julia and the boys proud of me. I'll do anything to prove myself. Anything.
Dusk fell on Peterboro, New York, wher
e Gerrit Smith, heir to a real-estate fortune, sat in the private office of his mansion. His guest was an abolitionist organizer named John Brown, recently returned from guerilla war in Kansas-Nebraska.
Smith was sixty-one, a well-fed, jolly-looking fellow, but Brown was thin and intense, with burning eyes and graying dark brown hair sticking in all directions like straw. “As we sit here,” said Brown in his preacherly voice, “Negroes are being murdered, beaten, and raped all across the South. We can expect nothing from politicians, and the time for speechifying has long past.” John Brown leaned forward, his hypnotic eyes casting their spell. “I have received reports that the slaves are ready to revolt, and all they need are guns. Mr. Smith, if you supply the money, I'll supply the guns and deliver them to where they're needed. We cannot wait longer for this crime against God to be ended.”
“Are you sure the slaves're ready to rise up?” asked Gerrit Smith cautiously. “Because if you fail, it will be a terrible setback for the movement.”
“We shall not fail,” replied John Brown with the certainty of the true believer.
“Whatever happens, I don't want my name brought into it.”
“The fewer people who know our plans, the better,” agreed John Brown.
Gerrit Smith opened a drawer of his desk, took out the strongbox, counted five hundred dollars, and passed the money to John Brown. “Good luck.”
John Brown scooped the coins into his pocket “Hallelujah—praise the Lord,” he replied. “For His children will be emancipated, and justice shall prevail upon this wicked land.”
Business completed, John Brown arose, shook Gerrit Smith's hand, then departed on his holy rounds, to remove the heel of Satan from the throat of America. Traversing the bucolic streets of Peterboro, John Brown reflected upon Smith's concerns. Even if I fail, I succeed, he knew. Freedom belongs to those who are willing to die for it.
It seemed as if golden effulgence surrounded John Brown as he walked among the row houses, hearing choirs of angels calling his name.
Chapter Eleven
The stagecoach rumbled into Santa Fe, and Esther's professional eyes noticed the sheriffs office, saloons, and nondescript buildings that might be whorehouses. The coach stopped in front of the Overland office, and the station manager helped her to the ground.
She was followed by other passengers, among them the old lawyer Bramwell Oates. It had been decided, through eye language and hasty utterances, that they would reside in the same hotel, and he would pay her bill, while she'd reimburse him in the usual manner, but it was better to plank one old lawyer than twenty drink-crazed cowboys every night.
A crew of Mexicans carried luggage into the hotel's ornate lobby, where Oates asked the man at the desk for two suites on the top floor, above the dust and noise of the street Esther's new quarters were sumptuous compared to what she usually rented. If only Sam was here, she thought.
There was a knock on the door, and the lawyer entered with his green toothy smile. She figured he wanted his first installment, and she might have to kiss him, but instead he said, “I've got business, but I'D be back around six. We'll have supper together.”
He kissed her cheek, the odor of decaying teeth nearly making her gag, but her smile never faltered, and her eyes danced with delight. “I can't wait.”
He patted her fanny, departed, and she ran to the window, leaned outside, and took a deep draft of fresh summer air. Then she dropped to a hand-carved chair with purple padded upholstery and caught a glimpse of the sorrows of her life. Why does everything happen to me? she wondered. After resting, she bathed, put on her best dress, strapped her knife to her garter, planted her Colt in her purse, and headed for the streets of Santa Fe.
The first thing she noticed was most of the men were armed, no lawman in sight. She arrived at the Black Cat Saloon, and the only women who visited such establishments were prostitutes, so she had no compunction about walking inside, threading among tables, and sitting on a bar chair.
It was a clean establishment with polished brass cuspidors and a sparse clientele of midafternoon drunkards playing cards, reading newspapers, or passed out cold. The only other customer at the bar was a corporal with a badly bruised face. Three prostitutes were visible, attempting to drum up business. The bartender was obese, with a nose like a banana. “Yer pleasure, ma'am?”
She ordered a whiskey, paid, and slipped an additional ten-dollar coin to him. “I need answers,” she said under her breath.
His hand covered the coin. “Such as?”
“You ever hear of a rancher named Barrington?”
“ ‘Fraid not, but I'm new in town.”
At the far end of the bar, the corporal with the black eye turned toward Esther. “Did I hear the name ‘Barrington'?”
Esther smiled. “Do you know ‘im?”
“No, but I met some of his cowboys a while back at Fort Buchanan. I was a-standin’ in the general store, a-mindin’ my own business, when one of ‘em walked up to me, and fer no reason a-tall, punched me in the mouth. If I was you, I'd watch out fer that Barrington bunch. They're animals, criminals, and murderers, and I cain't understand why they don't hang ‘em all.”
The Culhane gang rode down the main street of Nogales, an adobe town on the Mexican border, the kind of place where everybody watched their back-trail. The street featured seedy cantinas, two general stores, and one alcalde's office.
It was a weekday night, with plenty of room for the new gang to hitch their horses to a rail. They sauntered inside a cantina and saw fugitives much like themselves, dirty, bearded, some scarred, others with eye patches and tattoos, all with the same conspiratorial expression, as if they'd sell their mothers for fifty cents. Culhane headed for the bar while his men pushed together two big round tables. Nobody paid special attention, so preoccupied were they with plotting, gambling, or bragging about past misdeeds.
Culhane bought a whiskey at the bar, then slipped the bartender a five-dollar coin. Leaning closer, Culhane said, “I'm lookin’ fer men who want fast money, and don't care whar it comes from, or what they've got to do to git it. I'll be a-sittin’ over yonder.” He nodded with his head to the table.
“How many you want?” asked the bartender.
“About a dozen.”
“Shouldn't be a problem.”
***
Dostehseh and Jocita returned to camp and were greeted by their happy children. Tinaja was in charge of the warriors who'd remained. “Mangas Coloradas has gone to council with Sunny Bear,” he said.
Dostehseh turned to Jocita. “We shall wait for him here.”
“Perhaps we should deliver our message immediately,” replied Jocita.
Dostehseh narrowed her eyes, because she'd heard rumors concerning Jocita and Sunny Bear. “You may go if you like, but I will stay with my children.”
Jocita spent a few hours with Fast Rider, then filled her saddlebags with pemmican, saddled a fresh horse, and departed for the column of Mangas Coloradas to relay her message, her heart filled with fear and anticipation.
Cole Bannon and his Texas Rangers arrived at Fort Buchanan near sunset, and their first stop was the sutler's store. Tattered and trail-worn, they bellied up to the bar, ordered a round of whiskey, and toasted Major Rip Ford, commander of the Texas Rangers. After draining his glass, Cole displayed his tin badge to the sutler, then said, “Ever heard of a drifter named Steve Culhane?”
“Nope, but folks change their names out hyar like some change shirts. What's he done?”
“Murder, robbery, rustled cattle recently, and he's traveling with a gang.”
The sutler scratched his head. “Cowboys come through from time to time, but mostly we git soldiers. You should ask Captain Ewell.”
The post was ringed by round-topped summits barely visible in the twilight, and flickering lights could be seen in the shacks that comprised the installation. The Apaches could wipe this place out easily, figured Cole as he crossed the parade ground. If I had to live here, I'd go loco.
“He's havin’ his supper.”
“Who is it?” asked a booming voice in the next room.
“Texas Ranger,” said Hester.
“Send him in,” replied the post commander.
Cole passed to the next room, where a black-bearded man with a bald pate and bulging eyes sat before a plate of bacon and beans, a white napkin tied around his throat. “Hester,” said the captain, “set a place for this gentleman.”
Cole sat, feeling filthy and unkempt before the neat, precise captain. “Much obliged.”
“What can I do for you?” asked Captain Ewell, his table manners perfect, with an educated Virginia drawl.
“I'm looking for a gang of murderers and cattle rustlers who were headed toward the Barrington ranch, and I figure they must've stopped here. Know anything about it?”
Old Baldy wrinkled his brow. “As a matter of fact, a cowboy was here recently, with a herd of cattle to deliver to the Barrington ranch.”
“Looks like I'm too late,” said Cole. “They've probably killed him by now. This is the Culhane gang, and sometimes they murder for the hell of it. I'll leave for the Barrington ranch first thing in the morning, but I doubt anything'll be left.”
“I'll accompany you,” said Old Baldy. “Captain Barrington and I are old friends, and he spent many years in New Mexico Territory. He was one helluva soldier, let me tell you. I don't think any outlaws'll roll over him so easily.”
The sun sank behind the Jemez Mountains as Esther sat down to dinner with Bramwell Oates in his hotel room. “Ah, my dear,” he told her as he opened a bottle of champagne, “how magnificent you appear in the candlelight.”