by Judd Cole
Liddy paled, the roses in her cheeks disappearing.
“Jesus, girl,” Bill admonished her as he holstered his short iron. “It’s not a good idea to sneak up on a fellow like that.”
“I’m sorry.” Liddy swallowed the lump of fear in her throat. “Bill?”
“Hmm?” He had returned to his task.
“May I give you something for luck?”
Hickok, busy inspecting the saddle blanket for burrs, turned to look at her again.
“They say I have plenty of luck already. But you can’t ever have too much. I’d be honored.”
Liddy handed him a silver locket. Bill opened it. Inside, a little strand of blond hair was tied with a blue ribbon.
Liddy blushed. “It’s not presumptuous of me, is it?”
“I like it when ladies presume,” Bill assured her. He tucked the locket into the fob pocket of his vest.
Liddy moved in a little closer. Bill could smell her lilac perfume. “You’ll be careful?”
“‘Careful’ is my middle name.”
“Will you ... I mean, do you think you’ll be riding back this way?”
Bill grinned. “Why, sure,” he teased her. “I ain’t had a chance to jaw with Mitt yet.”
“Oh, pouf! Is that the only reason?”
By now Liddy’s pretty face was only inches from Bill’s.
“Well,” he reminded her, “I’m pretty ‘coarse and vulgar’, remember? Not even half the man I pretend to be, I think you said?”
This time Liddy flushed to the roots of her long hair.
“I spoke in the heat of anger.”
“Then let’s kiss and make up,” Bill suggested, wrapping his arms around her.
But even before their lips met, the ground began to tremble under their feet. Bill glanced up, then went wide-eyed. A long, low stable behind the bunkhouse was used to house the camel herd. Now the ugly, ungainly desert denizens were racing toward the paddock—with Calamity Jane riding the master camel.
“Hep!” she bellowed, flailing Ignatius with a light sisal whip. “Hep! Hep!”
One sight of those strange, monstrous beasts, and Bill’s horse reared up on its hind legs, whickering in panic. Bill cursed as he fought to grab the bridle—Jane had been watching him and Liddy all along!
“I’ll have to take a rain check on that kiss,” Bill said in haste. He realized the chestnut was about to bolt wildly. Not wanting to waste time chasing it down, Bill leaped onto the animal. He held on for dear life as it broke for the open gate of the paddock, Liddy gaping in pure astonishment behind him.
Chapter Nine
“Why do we need to return to Santa Fe?” Josh complained soon after the two companions rode out.
“Because that’s where I want to go. See how that works, kid? Or do I need your permission now?”
“No, it’s just. . . according to this map? It’s a straight shot north from the Lazy M to Taos. We have to go west, miles out of our way to reach Santa Fe.”
Wild Bill was being even more vigilant than he had on the way down. His penetrating gaze swept the trail on all sides, searching for movements and reflections.
“What about our remounts?” Bill replied. “Or do you want to ride that ornery Old Smoke day and night, wear him down? Maybe get tossed into another cactus patch?”
“Oh, yeah,” Josh conceded. “I forgot about the remounts.”
“Maybe,” Bill suggested, “you wouldn’t ‘forget’ so damn much if you kept your mind on something besides visions of Liddy.”
“Easy for you to say,” Josh shot back. “Women flock to you like flies to syrup.”
“That’s the cross I bear,” Bill replied with a poker face.
“Well, do you have to hog ‘em all?”
“Jesus, kid, set it to a tune! Do I look like I been making my living charging stud fees? Besides that pesticatin’ Calamity Jane, where’s these women flocking all over me?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Yeah, but your ass. Never mind, you hear me? The time to think about women is when you’re with them—not when killers are trying to lay a bead on you. I’ve seen fellows die hard out here because they were stupid enough to daydream and worry when they shoulda been keeping their nose to the wind.”
Josh knew all this was true. But his jealousy was keen.
“She was starting to like me,” he said. “She—”
Bill cut him off, showing a rare streak of exasperation.
“Damn it, Joshua, you’re turning into a one-trick pony, you know that? Liddy ain’t carrying no brand on her hip. Let the best man win when the time comes. Now put her out of your thoughts and watch for trouble.”
Josh said nothing more for the next couple of miles, his face sullen. He had witnessed that intimate little scene, between Liddy and Wild Bill, back at the Lazy M. Women are all the time using me, Josh fumed, to goad Wild Bill.
The two horsebackers entered a series of connecting canyons of coarse-grained metamorphic rock. Alternating layers of minerals—feldspar, quartz, mica—gave the rock walls a banded appearance.
It was along this stretch that they had been ambushed on the way down. Bill slid his Winchester ‘72 repeater from the saddle boot and levered a round into the chamber. He placed the butt plate on his right thigh, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.
Josh had gotten over his peeve, ashamed now that Bill had to lecture him like a spoiled child. He, too, forced his senses on the here and now.
However, they reached the outskirts of Santa Fe without incident.
“I’ve got some quick business at the U.S. Marshal’s headquarters on Commerce Street,” Bill told the kid. “While I’m there, I want you to check all the boardinghouses. Find out if Frank Tutt is staying in Santa Fe. Trouble is, he’d probably use a summer name”—Bill meant an alias— “so go by the description the Chinese kid gave us. I’ll meet you at the Frontier Cafe on College Street.”
Josh carried out his orders. But as Bill had feared, nobody had rented a room to anyone named Frank Tutt. Wild Bill was already waiting for him at the Frontier, drinking coffee. As usual, he had taken a table that left his back to a wall and gave him a good view of the entire cafe.
“No news, Bill,” Josh reported, scraping back a chair to join his friend. “If— Man alive!”
Josh had just spotted the five-pointed star pinned to Bill’s rawhide vest. “You’re a U.S. marshal now!”
“Deputy Marshal, actually. And it’s just temporary,” Bill assured him. “This is Sam Baxter’s badge, Longfellow. I took it off him when we buried him. I had myself deputized like Sam asked me.”
“But why?”
“I ain’t on Pinkerton’s payroll right now, kid. A deputy marshal’s pay ain’t much. But it’s better than working for free. Besides—the days of vigilante justice are behind us. I got no legal authority to get that damn bell back on my own. This way, if somebody carelessly gets himself killed, I won’t have to swing for it.”
“Is it the bell you want?” Josh asked, confused. “Or Sam Baxter’s killer?”
“I got a hunch,” Bill replied, “that one comes with the other.”
“Marshal Hickok,” Josh said, his eyes lighting up. He was already composing a headline, in his mind, for his next far-western dispatch: LEGENDARY GUNMAN PINS ON STAR AGAIN!
“Let’s feed our faces, then pick up our remuda and head up to Taos,” Bill said, waving the plump Mexican waitress over to their table. “Since Chimayo is right on the trail, we’ll stop there quick and see what the priest at El Santuario can tell us. Besides, that’s where El Lobo’s trail will start. He ain’t hauling no seven-hundred-fifty-pound bell around without leaving tracks behind.”
From Santa Fe, it was thirty-eight miles to the ill-fated pueblo of Chimayo. The two riders had set out too late to make it by nightfall. When their shadows grew long in the waning sun, they pitched a cold camp beside the trail, using their saddles for pillows. They munched on roast-beef sandwiches made up for them at the cafe.
They
rode into Chimayo about two hours after sunup. The little pueblo seemed just as still and eerie as it had when they rode through three days earlier. White towels still marked dwellings struck by plague.
The two riders moved slowly down the main street, their three remounts trailing behind them on a lead line tied to Wild Bill’s saddle horn.
“Why look, Bill!”
Josh pointed toward the brown adobe church at the far end of town. “There’s people outside the church. And there’s a priest. Nuns, too.”
“Wonder why?” Bill said thoughtfully. “It ain’t Sunday. Besides, Elena said the church was closed down because of threats from the locals.”
Wild Bill and Josh reined in at the church. A small crowd of Mexicans and indios watched them from suspicious, fearful eyes. They swung down and threw their bridles, hobbling the horse’s foreleg to rear with short strips of rawhide.
A short, portly, bald-headed priest in a black cassock stepped forward to greet them. Haggard pockets under his eyes bespoke recent suffering.
“Good morning, Marshal,” he said in good, slightly accented English, spotting Wild Bill’s badge. “May I help you gentlemen?”
“Maybe you can, Father,” Bill greeted him, politely touching the brim of his hat. “I’m guessing you must be Padre Ramon Garcia?”
“A sus ordenes,” the priest replied with a slight bow. “At your service. May I ask how you know my name, Marshal?”
“I’m a friend of Elena Vargas. She has explained the situation here.”
At this intelligence, Father Garcia flashed a broad smile of welcome.
“Of course! You are Wild Bill Hickok! Elena sent word she was asking you to help us here in Chimayo.”
The priest turned away briefly to speak to the fearful-looking crowd, none of whom spoke much English.
“Es un amigo de Senorita Vargas,” he explained, and immediately their faces registered smiles of welcome.
“You have arrived just in time, senors,” Padre Garcia told them. “Despite the hostility of some here in town, I have decided to open the church briefly for the faithful. Not for mass, just for prayers. Please come in, gentlemen.”
“Careful,” the priest warned everyone with a smile as he unlocked the heavy front doors. “The thick adobe walls make it much cooler inside. The cool darkness attracts many horned toads, lizards, and rattlesnakes.”
He opened the doors and everyone filed inside. The interior was sparse and simple, with an unsanded puncheon floor and raw-lumber pews. Niches in the thick old walls held plaster statues of the beloved saints. Despite the overall simplicity of El Santuario, however, the elaborate altar featured intricate bas-relief designs in hammered gold and silver.
Two black-robed nuns approached the altar and knelt. Bill and Josh watched them, rosaries moving through their fingers as they made novenas. Simply-dressed peons took seats in the pews, saying their beads or praying. One, an old man in dirty work clothes, knelt before the niche containing the statue of San Ysidrio, patron saint of farmers.
“Since our bell was stolen,” Padre Garcia explained in a low voice, “seed won’t even stay in the ground, much less grow. Wind takes it. Devil Wind, locals call it.”
“Padre,” Bill said, “I take it that you know the truth about that bell? The truth even Elena doesn’t know?”
The priest nodded. “Yes. It may seem inexplicable to outsiders such as yourself. Why, you wonder, would I leave so much gold hanging in a belfry when the residents are so poor and could use the money?”
Bill nodded. “That thought occurred to me,” he confessed.
“Whatever its turbulent history, Senor Hickok, that bell arrived in New Spain as a tribute to the greater glory of God. All things are His will, and I had no desire to thwart divine providence. And truly, this church did become special to the flock of believers. A ‘mother church’, if you will. The terrible misfortunes that have befallen us since the bell was stolen— do they not prove that our bell belongs here, gold or no?”
Despite his skeptical nature, Wild Bill saw plenty of sense in the cleric’s remarks. Bill thought of his favorite line from Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in all your philosophy.”
“Elena did tell me,” Bill said, “that this place has become famous as a sort of shrine.”
“Yes. It is the center for everything that is important to the people: birth, marriage, death. God, in His infinite wisdom, has sent you, Senor Hickok, to restore El Santuario to us.”
Josh shot a malevolent glance at Bill, and Hickok knew why. As a newly appointed deputy marshal, Bill’s job—inherited from Sam Baxter— was to turn that golden bell over to the U.S. government, not these poor villagers.
However, Bill left all that alone for now.
“You’re sure it was El Lobo who took it?” Hickok asked.
Father Garcia nodded. “I saw him and his men take it. They did it brazenly, in broad daylight. Heavily armed cutthroats no one could challenge. To their credit, they did not blaspheme beyond the crime itself. They terrorized no one and El Lobo let no one steal the altar gold. As he left, he even respectfully begged me to pray for his soul.”
“Far as I know, Padre, I’ve yet to damage any souls. His body is in more danger.”
Bill thanked the priest and promised to do what he could to track down the bell. Out behind the church, in the camposanto or cemetery, he and Josh found the beginning of the twin ruts that led north toward Taos.
“It’s not right, Bill,” Josh admonished his mentor. “Leading Padre Garcia on like that, making him think they’ll get the bell back. Why didn’t you tell him you’re working for the government, not the church?”
“And why don’t you stick a sock in your big mouth, kid?” Bill replied absently, still staring at the deep ruts. “C’mon, lets hit leather.”
While Wild Bill and Josh headed north toward Taos, Frank Tutt was on his way south to find them again.
Hadn’t been for that damned Sam Baxter, Frank told himself, Hickok would now be as cold as a fish on ice. But Baxter had paid the ultimate price for being a buttinsky. Frank had not enjoyed killing him—Baxter never did him any wrongs. But when it came to planting Hickok, Frank would shoot the Virgin Mary herself if she got in his line of fire.
Frank was perhaps a half days ride north of Chimayo. The country hereabouts alternated between prairie-grass flats, when there was standing water, and barren scrub hills when there wasn’t.
Plenty of men wanted to plug Hickok. But most of them were motivated by sheer greed for the bounty. Frank, in contrast, meant to settle a blood score. Toward that end, he had been preparing for years. And he had studied Hickok like a text, learning plenty about the enemy he meant to destroy.
Frank’s stomach cramped, and he remembered he hadn’t eaten since leaving El Lobo’s camp near San Juan. Up ahead, perhaps an hour from here, was a crude little pueblito called Polvo. There was a fly-blown cantina there where a man could get liquor and hot grub, if he didn’t mind picking the roaches out of his food.
Frank spurred his grullo from a trot to a canter, his thoughts rough and ugly.
“Polvo,” Josh said, studying the map spread open across his pommel. “About five miles straight ahead. What’s that word mean?”
“Dust,” Wild Bill replied. “So don’t be expecting no spas. I ain’t seen the place for years now. Might have dried up and blowed away since that map was made. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to get us some beans and tortillas there.”
The two riders found themselves in low hills bristling with creosote, prickly pear, and cholla. A big, glaring sun rode high in the sky, so hot that heat waves made the ground shimmer out ahead of them.
Josh had switched to his favorite horse, his big, well-trained Cavalry sorrel. Since riding out from Chimayo hours earlier, they had passed no one except a few farmers in straw Chihuahua hats, pushing a drove of mules.
Wild Bill spotted a pile of horse droppings and reined in, swinging d
own to inspect it. He broke it open with the toe of his boot.
“Almost dry inside,” he told Josh. “But not quite. In this hot sun, it can’t be that old.”
Bill’s vigilance now impressed Joshua. Every trick Hickok had learned as a scout now came into play. Any man who could drop Sam Baxter was dangerous indeed. And Wild Bill was convinced Frank Tutt still meant to kill him.
They descended from the cactus hills onto a broad expanse of grass. Josh pointed out ahead, his young face squinched up in puzzlement.
“Look there, Bill. There’s big circles where the grass has been beaten down. What caused them?”
“Some of the last buffalo herds in the country,” Bill explained, “have fled down here to the Southwest. Those are places where mothers of buffalo calves moved round and round during the night to protect the calves from wolves.”
About two miles outside the pueblito of Polvo, they crossed a high-ground knoll. This was clear, open country with a view for miles.
Again Wild Bill pulled in. To avoid silhouetting himself, Hickok low-crawled to a heap of rocks at the highest point of the knoll. For a long time he studied the landscape, searching for movement.
“Looks empty,” he finally reported to Josh.
Before they rode on, both men carefully checked their bits, bridles, girth, latigos, and stirrups. A brief ride brought them into view of a low, log-hut structure with an open cistern dug behind it. It reminded Bill of the posts he used to call stepping-off places because of their location at the edge of the frontier.
Although their stomachs were growling, the horses came first. They dropped the bridles and tethered their mounts and remounts in good graze about twenty yards from the cantina. Several more horses, and two mules, were also taking off the grass.
As the two men approached the low building, Bill made sure they stayed clear of the one small window. The hot afternoon was still and quiet except for the hum of cicadas and an occasional voice speaking Spanish from inside.
There was no door, just an old buffalo robe nailed over the entrance. Bill eased it aside to peer inside, Josh watching over his shoulder. The reporter saw a smoky, dark interior with a few crude lumber tables scattered about on a rammed-earth floor.
