Walking back, my side was still stiff and painful, but I was pleased to note that I no longer felt weak and light-headed. We went to my room, and I loaded my revolver and then put the box of cartridges in my valise, along with my other new shirt and the two bottles of brandy and the bottle of laudanum. Justa helped me to buckle on my gunbelt.
He said, “I noticed in Del Rio that you don’t wear cartridge loops in your belt either. I don’t because they make the damn rig too heavy.”
I said, “That and because I don’t see no use to them. The line I take is that if you’ve got a revolver in your hand, you are engaged in close work. And if you don’t get matters settled with six shots, you ain’t going to have time to reload anyway. And maybe ain’t going to be in no condition to reload. Of course I like to have extra cartridges on hand, say a few in my pocket and a box in my saddlebags. But I’m like you. I don’t want no four or five pounds of lead hanging around my waist I might never need or get to use.”
We went out of the room, and I waited in the lobby while Justa went to get the buggy. Wayne gave me my change, a matter of some twenty-four dollars. He said, “Mr. Williams said not to charge you for nothin’.”
“He did, huh? Likes to get me beholden to him.” I gave Wayne five dollars for his help and then went out on the boardwalk. Justa pulled up a minute later, his riding horse, a nice-looking dun gelding, tied on behind the buggy. I got in and we set off.
We wound out of town and then hit a wagon track heading due east. As soon as we were rolling down the road, Justa turned to me. He said, “Well, Will, what are you going to do about this Phil Sharp business?”
CHAPTER 3
I thought a moment. I said, “Obviously I ain’t going to do anything until I get healed up and in good shape. Then I calculate to go see him again. Only this time I ain’t going to be so trusting, and if there’s any surprises, they’ll be on my side.”
Justa was quiet for a moment. The buggy horse was trotting along nicely, raising little puffs of dust with his hooves. It was a pleasant spring day, not yet too warm, with just a hint of rain in the air. Justa said, “Why don’t you just let it go?”
I shook my head. I said, “I can’t do that.”
Justa said, “Will, you’re in an awkward position legally. I know that Phil Sharp, or a half dozen Phil Sharps, ain’t no match for you. But the law is. The way I understood it from you, and from talking to Lew Vara, is that you are betwixt and between. You ain’t exactly an outlaw or a wanted man, but you ain’t quite what is considered an honest citizen. You stir up any trouble, and the law is going to come after you. They might already be so far as you know. Lew hasn’t heard anything, but that don’t mean nothing. Let it go, Will. Go on back to Del Rio after you’ve rested up and run your whorehouse and casino.”
“I can’t,” I said.
“Is it the money? I know it’s a lot of money, but it’s not worth your freedom.”
I shook my head. I said, “It was the money at first, but now it ain’t got nothing to do with that. The son of a bitch set me up, Justa, planned on killing me. And then he shot me. If I don’t do something about it, every Phil Sharp in the country will think I’m easy pickings.”
“Maybe it won’t get out.”
I looked over at him. “What?”
He smiled. “All right. I don’t know the man, but I expect he will talk.”
I said, “Won’t take much for word to get around. It ain’t all that big of a bunch that frequents my establishment. Besides, Justa, I’m not going to let Phil Sharp think he can get away with shooting me. Even if I knew he’d never tell another soul.”
Justa nodded slowly. He reached out and flicked the reins at the buggy horse. The horse picked up his pace. Justa said, “Well, you ain’t got to think on it now. For the next week you are supposed to concentrate on healing up.”
I said, “I got to admit I am anxious to hear what your family has to say about you. All I know about you so far is what you’ve told me. I imagine that was kind of one-sided.”
He said, “You never have told me what you did with my black Thoroughbred racing horse.”
“Whose racing horse?”
“All right, the horse I let you keep for a while.”
“You mean that packhorse you palmed off on me? Hell, animal wasn’t worth his grain and hay. I give him to a Mexican just to get shut of him and get out of the expense of his upkeep.”
“I’ll bet,” Justa said dryly. “You’ve probably won fifty thousand dollars running that horse and are scairt to tell me because I might claim my rightful share.”
We hit a bump about then and I winced in spite of myself. Justa looked at me quickly. “You all right?”
It had given me a good pain, but I was trying not to let it show. I said, “Yeah.”
Justa said, “What makes you so damn stubborn? Why don’t you take some of that laudanum. Ain’t no point in hurting if you don’t have to. I broke my big toe here about six months ago. Horse stepped on it. And I guarantee you I drank that laudanum like it was water.”
I stared at him. I said, “You did?”
“Hell yes.”
“Dr. Adams know it?”
“He was the one give it to me.”
“Why, that lying son of a bitch!” I said. I rummaged in my valise, which was on the floorboard between Justa and me, and came out with the laudanum.
Justa said, “What lying son of a bitch?”
“Never mind,” I said. I didn’t want to tell him what the doctor had told Wayne to tell me about Justa only having to take one tablespoonful, because it was already starting to sound damn silly in my own ears. I tipped up the bottle and had a good swallow and then screwed the top back on and put it in my valise.
“What lying son of a bitch?”
“I told you never mind.”
Justa said, thoughtfully, “Dr. Adams, probably. He never could get me to use it. I told him such stuff was for little babies and old people.” He said it straight-faced, having waited until after I’d taken the dose.
I finally said, “Well, now we know who the lying son of a bitch is.”
We did that, went to ragging each other when we needed to turn the conversation away from serious matters. For the time being Phil Sharp would go to the back of the shelf. There was no use talking about him or the danger he represented until I was well enough to do something about it.
We traveled in silence for a time. That laudanum was pretty good stuff. My side had went to acting up from all the chousing around I’d been doing plus the buggy ride, but the laudanum was taking the edge right off the pain.
We started passing some herds of cattle. I could see, even though I didn’t know a hell of a lot about cattle, that these animals had been upgraded by crossing them with blooded stock from up north. Justa had told me a good deal about his breeding program when he’d been in Del Rio, but I hadn’t been very interested, so I hadn’t paid much attention. I was all for the rancher making money. It just meant that much more he’d have that I could take away from him across a poker table, and that without the bother of fooling around with a bunch of cow brutes and having to see to the care and feeding of them. I had a thousand acres in Mexico, but I didn’t bother with no cattle. I let my neighbors run theirs on the place in return for them clearing the land so the grass could grow without being choked out by huisache and cedar and mesquite and greasewood and bramble.
But I could see Justa didn’t have that problem. As far as the eye could see the green grass was a foot high, waving in the light breeze. Justa said, “We’re on Half-Moon property. These are Half-Moon cattle. Crossbreds. I got a herd of purebred Herefords, but they are grazing on the south range. You won’t see them today.”
I said, “Damn, and I was so-o-o looking forward to it.”
He gave me a sideways look. He said, “We’ll go straight on to my house. It’s after lunch, but Nora will fix us something. Or the maid. You can meet the rest of the family tonight. My dad is probably napping, an
d my brother Norris is in town and won’t be in until just before supper. My youngest brother, Ben, will be out with the horse herd.”
We drove on for about a mile, and I could see, in the distance, riders working a large herd. I knew enough to know it was calving season, so I reckoned every hand on the place was trying to keep up with the mama cows that were dropping calves. A little further on, a big, rambling house rose out of the prairie. It was surrounded by a number of outbuildings and corrals, including a big barn. Justa said, “That’s the main headquarters of the ranch. Dad and my two brothers live there. It started out as a one-room cabin a long, long time ago and just got built onto. Eight or ten rooms in it now. We keep twelve regular hired hands for the cattle, and Ben uses three or four vaqueros to help him with the horse herd. Seasons like now we’ll put on extra help.”
He left the wagon track and headed the buggy to his left, across the open prairie. He said, “My house is about a half a mile ahead. I built it when I married Nora.”
We raised his house just after we eame over a little hill. It was a lot like mine, being made out of stone and mortar and topped with red Mexican tiles. Behind it was a little barn and a small corral. Justa said, “Nora will see us coming. I don’t know how she does it, but she always does.”
Sure enough, as we approached the house, a woman in a light yellow frock came out the front door and stood on the front porch, waving. Justa waved back.
We pulled up in front, and I got out of the buggy on my side and Justa got out on his. Mrs. Williams came forward. She said, “Mr. Young, welcome. I’ve heard a good deal about you. Welcome to our house.”
It didn’t take much eyesight to see why Justa didn’t have much trouble being true to her. She had wheat-colored hair and a trim waist and the kind of bosom a woman of her youth is supposed to have. She was not beautiful in a painted lady sort of way, but she was about as pretty as it was possible to get. And there was something in her face and eyes that couldn’t be gotten out of any ladies paint box. She come toward me, her hand out, but I swept off my hat and made her a low bow. It nearly killed my side to do so, but I still managed to say, “Your servant, ma’am.”
Justa laughed. He said, “Would you look at that tinhorn gentleman? Making them fancy manners. I bet he’s sorry now.”
Mrs. Williams said, “Justa, now you hush!”
Justa said, “Hell, he’s been shot in the side, been whining the whole way about how bad he’s hurting. Then he gets here and goes and makes a big bow to impress the womenfolk. I’m surprised it didn’t near kill him.”
The bad part of it was that he was right. Mrs. Williams came and took my arm and said, “Let’s get you sat down, Mr. Young.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Thank you.” I looked over her shoulder at Justa. I said, “I don’t let what he says bother me. I know he never learnt no manners, and if other folks uses them, it embarrasses him.”
“That’s right.” she said. She gave Justa a look as we went inside.
It was cool and pleasant inside the house. Mrs. Williams led me into the parlor and got me set down in a big, comfortable chair. She said, “I just made some lemonade, Mr. Young. Of course we haven’t got any ice out here, but we’ve got an artesian well and the water is passing cool.”
“I’d favor some,” I said gallantly. Though what I really wanted was a good hard drink of brandy.
Justa came in and saw me with the lemonade in my hand. His wife had gone back into the kitchen for something. He made a small smile. He said, “You know, I calculate I drank near on to a hundred gallons of that stuff while I was courting Nora. Of course I commenced to sweetening it up toward the last. She never caught on. Drink some out of that before she gets back.”
I took a good swallow, and Justa dived his hand in my valise and came out with the opened bottle of brandy. He pulled the cork and then poured me a good slug in with my lemonade. It darkened it some, but I didn’t care. Justa put the brandy away and sat down as his wife came in with a glass for him. He said, “Ah, boy, I can use that, dry as I am.”
But then he immediately got up and went into a room just off the parlor. The door was half-closed. He was back in a minute, and his lemonade was considerably darker also. He sat back down and raised his glass to me. He said, “Luck.”
I did likewise, and then we had a good long pull. The brandy and the lemonade mixed mighty well, though I generally favored it unblemished.
Mrs. Williams said, dryly, “I thought you only made that ’luck’ toast with whiskey.”
“Oh, no, no,” Justa said. “You can do it with water.”
She said, “So long as it’s got whiskey in it?”
We had better sense than to say anything, and Mrs. Williams said she had lunch on the table whenever we were ready. She said, “It’s not much. I didn’t know when y’all would be getting here. It’s just some cheese and cold roast beef, and I made some potato salad.”
Justa said, “Did you cut Wilson’s meat up for him?”
I give him a sour look, but Mrs. Williams said, “Oh, Mr. Young, I’m so sorry. I never thought. I’ll go and do it right now.”
I waved her back with my right hand. I said, “Thank you, Mrs. Williams, but it won’t be necessary. That is just one of the thousand poor jokes your husband has made at my expense ever since he found me wounded. Had it not been for the pleasure of your acquaintance, I would have viewed this stop off on my trip as some sort of punishment for my past sins.”
Justa whooped. He said, “Honey, do not let this man fool you! He used to be a snake oil salesman.”
She looked at him. She said, “Hush, Justa. And leave our guest alone. Besides, I thought you told me he used to be a bank robber.”
I said, still using my humble, sincere voice, “No use trying to defend me, Mrs. Williams. Mr. Williams is determined to pay me back for some imagined wrongs when he was in Del Rio.”
She said, “Of course I knew you had been wounded, Mr. Young. Justa’s brother, Norris, who works in town stopped by last night to tell me Justa would be staying in town with you. He told me you had been gunshot. I’m amazed to see you looking so well.”
Justa said, “Hell, it’s just a pinprick! Don’t amount to a hill of beans.”
She ignored him. She said, “How did it come to happen, Mr. Young? And don’t be shy.” She looked over at Justa and said, “I’m used to gunshot wounds in this family.”
I said, kind of fumbling around, “Well, it was—”
But Justa broke in and said, “He was bowing to a lady and bent over too far and his gun went off and peeled off a little bit of skin.”
We went in and ate lunch in the kitchen without Mrs. Williams being any the wiser about my situation. I had got the impression that Justa didn’t want his wife to know too much about it. Fortunately, over lunch, we finally dropped the formality, and she started calling me Wilson and I called her Nora. She said she was ashamed of the way her husband was acting, especially as he’d come home with the wound in his hip and told her how I’d doctored it. When she said that, I just gave him a significant look and he was a defeated man.
They put me in a spare bedroom that had a good bed and some nice big windows that let in the sea breeze. It was about three o’clock in the afternoon, but I figured I ought to have a little rest. My side had gone to throbbing again, so I took a little of the laudanum and got my boots off and laid down for a rest. Justa said we’d eat supper there with Nora, but then he and I would go up to the main house to see his brothers and his father.
I reckoned it was the laudanum, but I dropped off right away and slept right through until Justa came and woke me up about six-thirty. The nap had done me good. I got out of bed and put on a fresh shirt without any help from Justa, and then washed up and brushed my hair, and we went into supper. We ate in the dining room, off a big, long, heavy table with those high-backed Mexican chairs. The maid had cooked supper, arroz con pollo, and it was near as good as Evita could have made. Justa had told me they might not have the
best cook and maid in the county, but they damn sure had the fattest, and this Juanita didn’t make no liar out of him.
When we were finished, me and Justa had a drink and then set out for the main house to see his brothers and father. He said he went up there every evening after supper, and they sat around and visited or talked business for an hour or so. The Half-Moon was what you called a corporation, and Justa was the head of the business. His brother Norris handled everything but the ranch itself, but he couldn’t make any decisions without Justa’s say-so. I figured Justa to be thirty-one or thirty-two, and he’d already told me that Norris was two years younger than him and that Ben was two years younger than Norris.
Justa had offered to hitch the buggy back up, but it only being a half mile, I thought the walk would do me good.
We went in the back of the house and passed down a hall with a door opening off to the right, into what I took to be the dining room and, beyond that, the kitchen, judging from the sounds and the smells. Then, a little further on, we turned left into a big, comfortable room that Justa said doubled as an office and a place to sit around. He said there was a parlor, but he said it hadn’t got much use since their mother had died.
We came in, and I recognized them right off from Justa’s description. His brother Ben was sitting against the far wall in a straight-backed chair he had tipped back against the wall. Norris was sitting in a swivel chair on one side of a huge double desk. He had his face buried in some papers and didn’t look up right away. The old man, Howard, was sitting in a rocking chair right near the door to another room. That was the father of all three of them. He didn’t quite fit his clothes anymore, but I could see from the framework of the man that he’d once been of a size not to take too lightly. Justa said he’d never been the same since he’d lost his wife, and then, some seven or eight years back, a bullet had nicked his lungs and his heart had been affected. He was on doctor’s orders not to drink more than one watered whiskey a day, but Justa said he probably snuck about four or five straight ones and never even felt guilty about it.
Dead Man's Poker Page 6
