I went back to the granddaddy of my cacti and picked up the basket. On the porch I set it down and myself in my rocking chair to think. What was I going to do?
I could go to the sheriff in Arroyo, but the idea didn’t please me. For one thing, like Hank had said, there was no law against shooting a cactus. And for another, it was embarrassing to be in this kind of predicament at my age. I could see all the locals lined up at the bar of the saloon, laughing at me. No, I didn’t want to go to Sheriff Daly if I could help it.
So what else? I could shoot Hank, I supposed, but that was even less appealing. Not that he didn’t deserve shooting, but they could hang you for murdering a man, unlike a cactus. And then, while I had a couple of Joe’s old rifles, I’d never been comfortable with them, never really mastered the art of sighting and pulling the trigger. With my luck, I’d miss Hank and kill off yet another cactus.
I sat on the porch for a long time, puzzling and listening to the night sounds of the desert. Finally I gave up and went to bed, hoping the old fool would come to his senses in the morning.
He didn’t, though. Shotgun blasts on the far side of the ranch brought me flying out of the house the next night. By the time I got over there, there was nothing around except a couple of dead cacti. The next night it happened again, and still the next night. The bastard was being cagey, too. I had no way of proving it actually was Hank doing the shooting. Finally I gave up and decided I had no choice but to see Sheriff Daly.
I put on my good dress, fixed my hair, and hitched up my horse to the old buckboard. The trip into Arroyo was hot and dusty, and my stomach lurched at every bump in the road. It’s no fun knowing you’re about to become a laughing-stock. Even if the sheriff sympathized with me, you can bet he and the boys would have a good chuckle afterward.
I drove up Main Street and left the rig at the livery stable. The horse needed shoeing anyway. Then I went down the wooden sidewalk to the sheriff’s office. Naturally, it was closed. The sign said he’d be back at two, and it was only noon now. I got out my list of errands and set off for the feed store, glancing over at the saloon on my way.
Hank was coming out of the saloon. I ducked into the shadow of the covered walkway in front of the bank and watched him, hate rising inside me. He stopped on the sidewalk and waited, and a moment later a stranger joined him. The stranger wore a frock coat and a broad-brimmed black hat. He didn’t dress like anyone from these parts. Hank and the man walked toward the old adobe hotel and shook hands in front of it. Then Hank ambled over to where the bay was tied, and the stranger went inside.
I stood there, frowning. Normally I wouldn’t have been curious about Hank Gardner’s private business, but when a man’s shooting up your cacti you develop an interest in anything he does. I waited until he had ridden off down the street, then crossed and went into the hotel.
Sonny, the clerk, was a friend from way back. His mother and I had run church bazaars together for years, back when I still had the energy for that sort of thing. I went up to him and we exchanged pleasantries.
Then I said, “Sonny, I’ve got a question for you, and I’d just as soon you didn’t mention me asking it to anybody.”
He nodded.
“A man came in here a few minutes ago. Frock coat, black hat.”
“Sure. Mr. Johnson.”
“Who is he?”
“You don’t know?”
“I don’t get into town much these days.”
“I guess not. Everybody’s’ talking about him. Mr. Johnson’s a land developer. Here from Phoenix.”
Land developer. I began to smell a rat. A rat named Hank Gardner.
“What’s he doing, buying up the town?”
“Not the town. The countryside. He’s making offers on all the ranches.” Sonny eyed me thoughtfully. “Maybe you better talk to him. You’ve got a fair-sized spread there. You could make good money. In fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t been out to see you.”
“So am I, Sonny. So am I. You see him, you tell him I’d like to talk to him.”
“He’s in his room now. I could …”
“No,” I held up my hand. “I’ve got a lot of errands to do. I’ll talk to him later.”
But I didn’t do any errands. Instead I went home to sit in my rocker and think.
THAT NIGHT I didn’t light my kerosene lamp. I kept the house dark and waited at the front door. When the evening shadows had fallen, I heard a rustling sound. A tall figure slipped around the stone wall into the dooryard.
I watched as he approached one of the giant saguaros in the dooryard. He went right up to it, like he had the first one he’d shot, turned and walked exactly ten paces, then blasted away. The cactus toppled, and Hank ran from the yard.
I waited. Let him think I wasn’t home. After about fifteen minutes, I got undressed and went to bed in the dark, but I didn’t rest much. My mind was too busy planning what I had to do.
The next morning I hitched up the buckboard and drove over to Hank’s ranch. He was around back, mending a harness. He started when he saw me. Probably figured I’d come to shoot him. I got down from the buckboard and walked up to him, a sad, defeated look on my face.
“You’re too clever for me, Hank. I should have known it.”
“You ready to stop your foolishness and marry me?”
“Hank,” I lied, “there’s something more to my refusal than just stubbornness.”
He frowned. “Oh?”
“Yes. You see, I promised Joe on his deathbed that I’d never marry again. That promise means something to me.”
“I don’t believe in …”
“Hush. I’ve been thinking, though, about what you said about farming my ranch. I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you farm it for me? I’ll move in over here, keep house and feed you. We’re old enough everyone would know there weren’t any shenanigans going on.”
Hank looked thoughtful, pleased even. I’d guessed right; it wasn’t my fair body he was after.
“That might work. But what if one of us died? Then what?”
“I don’t see what you mean.”
“Well, if you died, I’d be left with nothing to show for all that farming. And if I died, my son might come back from Tucson and throw you off the place. Where would you be then?”
“I see.” I looked undecided, fingering a pleat in my skirt. “That is a problem.” I paused. “Say, I think there’s a way around it.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. We’ll make wills. I’ll leave you my ranch in mine. You do the same in yours. That way we’d both have something to show for our efforts.”
He nodded, looking foxy. “That’s a good idea, Kathryn. Very good.”
I could tell he was pleased I’d thought of it myself.
“And, Hank, I think we should do it right away. Let’s go into town this afternoon and have the wills drawn up.”
“Fine with me.” He looked even more pleased. “Just let me finish with this harness.”
THE WILL SIGNING, of course, was a real solemn occasion. I even sniffed a little into my handkerchief before I put my signature to the document. The lawyer, Will Jones, was a little surprised by our bequests, but not much. He knew I was alone in the world, and Hank’s son John was known to be more of a ne’er-do-well than his father. Probably Will Jones was glad to see the ranch wouldn’t be going to John.
I had Hank leave me off at my place on his way home. I wanted, I said, to cook him one last supper in my old house before moving to his in the morning. I went about my preparations, humming to myself. Would Hank be able to resist rushing back into town to talk to Johnson, the land developer? Or would he wait a decent interval, say a day?
Hank rode up around sundown. I met him on the porch, twisting my handkerchief in my hands.
“Kathryn, what’s wrong?”
“Hank, I can’t do it.”
“Can’t do what?”
“I can’t leave the place. I can’t leave Joe’s memory. This whole thing’s been a terrible
mistake.”
He scowled. “Don’t be foolish. What’s for supper?”
“There isn’t any.”
“What?”
“How could I fix supper with a terrible mistake like this on my mind?”
“Well, you just get in there and fix it. And stop talking this way.”
I shook my head. “No, Hank, I mean it. I can’t move to your place. I can’t let you farm mine. It wouldn’t be right. I want you to go now, and tomorrow I’m going into town to rip up my will.”
“You what?” His eyes narrowed.
“You heard me, Hank.”
He whirled and went toward his horse. “You’ll never learn, will you?”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you think? Once your damned cactuses are gone, you’ll see the light. Once you can’t make any more of that wine, you’ll be only too glad to pack your bags and come with me.”
“Hank, don’t you dare!”
“I do dare. There won’t be a one of them standing.”
“Please, Hank! At least leave my granddaddy cactus.” I waved at the fifty-foot giant in the outer dooryard. “It’s my favorite. It’s like a child to me.”
Hank grinned evilly. He took the shotgun from the saddle and walked right up to the cactus.
“Say good-bye to your child.”
“Hank! Stop!”
He shouldered the shotgun.
“Say good-bye to it, you foolish woman.”
“Hank, don’t you pull that trigger!”
He pulled it.
Hank blasted at the giant saguaro—one, two, three times. And, like the others, it began to lean.
Unlike the others, though, it didn’t lean backwards. It gave a great sigh and leaned and leaned and leaned forwards. And then it toppled. As it toppled, it picked up momentum. And when it fell on Hank Gardner, it made an awful thud.
I stood quietly on the porch. Hank didn’t move. Finally I went over to him. Dead. Dead as all the cacti he’d murdered.
I contemplated his broken body a bit before I hitched up the buckboard and went to tell Sheriff Daly about the terrible accident. Sure was funny. I’d say, how that cactus toppled forward instead of backward. Almost as if the base had been partly cut through and braced so it would do exactly that.
Of course, the shotgun blasts would have destroyed any traces of the cutting.
Brian Garfield grew up surrounded by pulp authors such as Nelson Nye, Elliot Arnold, and Luke Short—not just their fiction, but the writers themselves. He began writing at the age of twelve, and sold his first novel when he was eighteen years old. Although he has written many Westerns, he’s probably best known for such major historical novels as Wild Times. The trouble with this assessment is that it overlooks some equally fine work he did with the traditional western in the early seventies, Sliphammer, Valley of the Shadow, and Gun Down being particularly effective.
Peace Officer
Brian Garfield
It was hot. A gauze of tan dust hung low over the street.
Matt Paradise rode his horse into Aztec, coming off the coach road at four in the afternoon, and when he passed a drygoods store at the western end of the street a lady under a parasol smiled at him. Matt Paradise tipped his hat, rode on by, and mutters sotto voce, “A friendly face, a sleepy town. Don’t I wish.”
He was a big-boned young man. He took off his hat to scrape a flannel sleeve across his forehead, and exposed to view a wild, thick crop of bright red hair. He had a bold face, vividly scarred down the right cheek. His eyes were gold-flecked, hard as jacketed bullets. There was the touch of isolation about him. He carried a badge, pinned to the front of his shirt.
An intense layer of heat lay along the earth. He found the county sheriff’s office, midway down a block between the hardware store and the barbershop; he dismounted there and climbed onto the dusty boardwalk with legs stiffened from a long day’s hot ride.
He rested his shoulder against the frame of the open door and waited for his eyes to accustom themselves to the gloom inside. A voice reached forward from the dimness: “Something I can do for you?”
“Sun’s pretty strong this time of year,” Matt Paradise said. “I can’t make you out yet. Sheriff Morgan?”
“I am.”
Matt Paradise took three paces into the office. As his pupils began to dilate he took in the office—not very much different from a dozen other sheriffs’ offices in Arizona Territory—and its occupant.
Sheriff John Morgan was stripped down to a faded pink undershirt. The empty right sleeve was pinned up at the shoulder.
Morgan was middle-aged. His shoulders were heavy, and his belly was beginning to swell out over his belt line. His face was craggy and weathered, topped by a sidewise slash of hair that was going thin and of salt-and-pepper color.
And so this—this—was the legendary Morgan, the peace officer who had cleaned up Coyotero County single-handed. This tired man, getting older, with his chin softening up. Morgan’s eyes were pouched. His left hand drummed nervously on the desk. Matt Paradise masked his shock behind squinted eyes. The years had reduced John Morgan to a kind of bookmark, which only marked the place where a great lawman had been. The disappointment of it made Paradise guard his voice:
“Name’s Paradise. Arizona Rangers.”
Morgan touched his stiff mustache. He seemed to notice Paradise’s badge for the first time. He tried to make his voice sound friendly: “Glad to see you.”
Paradise wanted to turn around and ride out of town and not look back.
Morgan said, “Business or just traveling through?”
Just traveling through, Paradise wanted to say. But he fastened his will around him. “Business, I’m afraid.”
“Afraid, Ranger?”
Matt Paradise inhaled deeply. Better get it over with. Why beat around the bush? You poor, tired old man. He said, almost harshly, “Your house isn’t in order, Sheriff. I’ve been sent down here to help you clean it out.”
He saw color rise in Morgan’s cheeks, and he wanted to look away, but he held the sheriff’s sad glance.
“You’re just a kid,” Sheriff Morgan said. “I don’t want any amateur help, Ranger.”
“Afraid you’ve got it, Sheriff, whether you want it or not.”
He saw an abrupt touch of sullenness in Morgan’s glance, and he thought, I pity you, Morgan, but I’ve got to lay it on the line so there’s no mistake. He said, “You’re getting fat—where you sit and where you think.”
Instantly, Morgan’s eyes showed cruel hatred. Paradise walked forward to the desk and spoke flatly. “Doc Wargo has been in this town for two weeks and you haven’t done anything about it.”
“That’s right,” Morgan said evenly. “Wargo’s broken no laws in this county. I can’t touch him.” His eyes gleamed brutally.
“The Territory wants him for murder, Sheriff, and you know it. You’ve received two wires from our headquarters, to arrest Wargo and deliver him to Prescott for trial.”
Morgan sighed out a long breath. “Ranger, you’re young and impatient and there are certain things you’ve got to learn. This country isn’t easy on anybody, young fellow, and if you want to survive very long, you learn that certain stones are better left unturned. There’s a difference between making a stand and rocking the boat. Now, with this business, I’m alone in this office, no deputies, and I had my right arm shot off a year ago in a fight. What kind of chance do you think I’d stand if I went after Wargo and his gang?”
“Gang?” Matt Paradise murmured. “He’s got one man with him, the way I hear it.”
“Ernie Crouch isn’t one man, Ranger. He’s a crowd.”
“So you’re not lifting a finger.”
“I am not,” Morgan told him. “You can do whatever you like, Ranger, but I hate to see you come so far just to get killed. Those two haven’t made any trouble in my county. And until they do, I leave them alone. That’s my policy.” He shook his head. “Go on home, son. You can�
�t fight Wargo and Crouch.”
“How do you know, Sheriff?” Paradise said softly. “You’ve never tried.”
He expected Morgan to explode, but Morgan just sat and looked at him as if he were slightly crazy. Then Morgan said, “The only times lawmen have tried to close Doc Wargo down, he’s closed them down. Do you understand what I’m telling you, boy? You ever handled anything like this before?”
“Maybe.”
“And you think you can handle Wargo and Crouch, do you?”
“If I didn’t,” said Matt Paradise, “I wouldn’t be here.”
Morgan scrutinized the hang of Paradise’s twin revolvers. “How good do you think you are with those things?”
“Good enough. Nobody’s killed me yet.”
“Suit yourself, then.”
It made Paradise lean forward and plant both palms on the desk. He brought his face near the level of Morgan’s. “Don’t you care, Sheriff? Don’t you care at all? All the legends about John Morgan—are they all lies?”
Morgan’s left hand reached the desk and gripped its edge. “Legends are for the far past, boy. That was a lot of miles ago. Let me tell you what a smart man does. When the likes of Doc Wargo takes over your town, you just hunker down and take it like a jackrabbit in a hailstorm. Because sooner or later the hailstorm moves on. Wargo will move on too, and if he’s not prodded, he won’t hurt anybody in the meantime.”
“And you’re willing to take the chance on that, are you?”
Morgan sat back and studied him. “Tell me something. What do you do with all your time, Ranger? Just ride around hunting up trouble for yourself?”
“Trouble and I are old friends,” Paradise said. “We understand each other.”
“Sure.”
“I’m arresting Doc Wargo,” Paradise told him. “Do I get your help or not?”
“I’ll think about it,” the sheriff said, and turned away in his chair to reach for a newspaper.
“You’ve got five seconds.” Paradise said flatly.
A Century of Great Western Stories Page 37
