by Paul Lederer
‘You think they will agree?’
‘As long as they get their cut. I told you, it’s politics; no one minds taking money from the citizens so long as some of it ends up in their fat pockets.’
‘You are a sly and greedy person, Glen Walker,’ Carmalita said as she snuggled up tightly against him.
‘So are you, my darling,’ Walker said quietly, ‘so are you.’
With the horses and coach given over to the stable crew, Chad made his way home, taking a reluctant Byron Starr along with him.
‘I don’t know these people, Chad, and I haven’t any money.’
‘It’s all right. My friend Glen Walker owns the house, and the women there are some sort of relations to his girlfriend.’
‘If you say so,’ Starr replied.
‘Sure I do, and wait until you taste the food these women can cook! Pork tamales, carne asada, chorizo, machaca.…’
‘I don’t even know what any of that is,’ Starr said as they trudged toward the front door of the adobe house.
‘You will, my friend and you won’t ever forget after you try some.’
The front door stood wide open, which was surprising since usually people in this section of the country kept the doors shut as long as possible to keep out the desert heat. Windows and doors stood wide open after sundown, but not at midday. Chad realized instinctively that something was happening. Starr noticed his expression.
‘What is it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Chad had to say. Starr had already dropped the saddle he had been carrying over his shoulder, and now held his rifle in both hands.
‘I’m sure it’s nothing,’ Chad said. ‘I’m just a little jumpy after this morning.’
‘Having men shoot at you can do that,’ Starr agreed. They stepped up onto the porch and went inside the dark house, closing the door behind them. There was the smell of salsa being simmered in the kitchen, and the lingering scent of the old women’s powder and soap. No one was moving about the adobe.
‘Why don’t you take a seat and let me look around,’ Chad said, nodding at the sofas with the striped Indian blankets on them.
‘If you’re still uneasy, I can go with you,’ Starr offered.
‘No – I have no reason to think anything’s wrong. It’s just that it hasn’t been an easy day for me. I just have some left-over jumpiness.’
‘I’ll be here,’ Starr said, settling on the comfortably upholstered sofa – a rare luxury for a long-traveling man. ‘Just scream if you need me.’
Chad was feeling too weary to take offense at the light mockery in Starr’s voice. He turned and walked down the dark hallway to his room.
Someone was in there!
He didn’t scream, but his throat constricted and he drew his revolver, holding it high beside his ear as he toed the door to the room open. The woman inside was only half-dressed, and she spun toward him, holding her dress up in front of her. Her dark hair was loose around her shoulders; her eyes flashed.
‘Who are you in my room?’ she shrieked, her voice heavy with a Spanish accent.
‘Who are you in my room?’ Chad said. He noticed an open suitcase on the bed, and a large trunk standing near by. The window was open, the curtains parted enough for the daylight to reveal a beautiful woman in her late teens or early twenties. She wore a necklace of silver conchos. Chad holstered his weapon and tried for a smile. It was an awkward expression.
‘Look,’ he said as calmly as he could, ‘I’ve been staying here. In this room.’
‘This is the home of my aunts,’ the girl answered indignantly. ‘You, go away!’ The girl’s eyes went to the door. ‘Tia Margarita,’ she said, and Chad shifted his eyes to see one of the little round women standing there, bed linen in her hands. ‘Who is this … what is he doing in my bedroom?’
‘Did you, uh, come back?’ the older woman said, obviously having trouble with her English.
‘Of course,’ Chad said patiently. ‘No one told me I had to leave. Glen Walker told me I could stay here as long as necessary.’
‘Glen Walker?’ the young woman said. She had turned her back and was struggling into her pink dress as Aunt Margarita frowned at each of them in turn. ‘Glen Walker is.…’ Candida broke into rapid Spanish which Chad could not follow. Her aunt nodded and shrugged.
When Candida finished her outpouring Margarita poked her fingers into her graying hair and admitted, ‘Yes, it is true. This man is an amigo of Señor Walker. We thought he was going away this morning. He got on the … eh, stagecoach and left.’
‘You are a friend of Glen Walker?’ the younger woman asked.
‘Yes. A good friend.’
‘Then you know my cousin, Carmalita.’
‘I haven’t met her.’
‘Then not so good a friend, I think,’ the girl said, pushing out her lower lip. ‘My name is Candida. As you know, these are my two aunts, Margarita and Rosa,’ for the second sister had appeared in the doorway, her round face a mask of confusion.
‘I’m Chad Dempster,’ he said. ‘Look, I didn’t mean to cause any trouble. It’s just that this room was given to me. I just figured it was still mine – I even brought a friend back to stay with me until he can get on his feet.’
‘Your friend,’ Candida said. ‘Are you sure it is a man?’ There was a twinkle in her eyes that both pleased and embarrassed Chad.
‘That’s what they tell me,’ Starr’s voice said from the doorway. ‘I heard a ruckus back here, Chad, and thought I’d better come and investigate.’ His eyes lingered on Candida, ‘It seems you have things well in hand.’
‘I am so sorry,’ Aunt Margarita said. ‘Only mistakes. Of course you may have your room, Señor Chad. There are two beds in this room, and so your friend can stay. Candida – we will have to move you.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Chad said to Candida, but the girl was still smiling with amusement. What exactly it was that she found funny he didn’t know.
‘It is of no matter – I am the intruder,’ she said as she closed the open suitcase and reached for a hairbrush she had left on the bureau. She swept out past Chad, trailing a lavender scent.
Chad asked, ‘Do you want me to bring that trunk?’
‘Oh, no. You are a guest,’ Margarita said, ‘Rosa and I can carry it.’
When the women had gone, Starr made his way back into the room, lugging his saddle with him. He dropped this on the floor and stood looking appreciatively around the room. ‘This is a nice place, Chad. Remind me to show you the bush I slept under last night.’
Chad grinned and sat on his bed. ‘It suits me too. Did you get a whiff of that food cooking in the kitchen?’
‘Among other things,’ Starr said, seating himself on the opposite bed. ‘Man, you have fallen into some good luck, haven’t you? Home-cooked meals, a soft bed, a pretty girl interested in you.…’
‘I don’t even know her,’ Chad objected.
‘No, but she’s noticed you, Chad. There are women’s smiles and women’s smiles. That one she left on you wasn’t because she thinks you are an amusing person.’
‘That’s.…’ Chad began, but his denial lost its force. Maybe that was because he wished what Starr said were true. Maybe Candida did think he was an interesting man, though why she would was a mystery. But as he stretched out on his bed and tried to make up for lost sleep and the rigors of the trail, he let his imagination linger on the dark-eyed girl and believe just for a few minutes that it might be so.
It was still only mid-afternoon when Chad awoke. Opening his eyes, he saw that Starr was already awake, cleaning and oiling his pistols at the table in the corner of the room. The light in the room was murky, and the afternoon heat had begun to gather. Chad sat up on his bed, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with the back of his hand.
‘These thick adobe walls are fine for keeping the morning heat out,’ Byron Starr said, snapping the loading gate on his pistol shut and holstering it, ‘but I guess nothing can defeat the desert heat all day lo
ng. Want to go out and get some fresh air and a cool drink?’
‘Yeah,’ Chad replied like a dazed man, which he was by heat and sleep. ‘The aunts don’t serve dinner until hours after dark; another desert custom.’ He paused. ‘We could grab a beer or two. And I should report back to Glen Walker, anyway.’
Starr rose to his feet, smiling. ‘Don’t forget to bring your bona fides along with you.’
‘My what?’
‘That letter you got from the banker in Diablo.’
‘Oh, that. I don’t think it would impress Walker much.’
‘Maybe not, but as I’m sort of riding along on your coat tails right now, it’s important to me that you maintain your reputation – after all, we’re both unemployed as of now.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Chad answered. ‘It all seems sort of silly, though.’
‘To you, maybe, maybe not to other folks.’
Dan shrugged a response, slipped into a clean blue shirt and stuffed the letter from Walter Pettit into his pocket. Maybe Starr was right about that. It at least showed that he had completed his assignment competently. Whether that was true or not … it was Starr, after all, who had pulled them through.
They started toward the front door of the house. Chad caught himself glancing around: he knew whom he was hoping to see, but Candida was nowhere to be found. They swung open the heavy door on its pin-and-iron-ring hinges and went out into the glare and heat of the summer day.
They started walking toward town. Neither man had a horse and no prospect of getting one any time soon. Chad, at least, knew he was due some sort of wages, but he and Walker had not discussed what that amount was to be. The ground underfoot was still only white dust, fine as silt. Each step brought up small puffs of dust. The air was hot, dry and stagnant.
‘Do you have any idea where we’re going?’ Chad asked his cheerful companion.
‘I saw a beer parlor when we pulled into town. A place called FitzRoy’s, I think it was. We’ll cool off for a while, then go track down Glen Walker and see what kind of situation he has in mind for you.’
‘If any,’ Chad said glumly. His hat was pulled low as they trudged along through the nearly deserted streets of Las Palmas.
‘If any,’ Starr agreed. ‘Then we’ll know what we’re facing, if we have to make plans to travel on.’
‘I don’t know if I’ve got any traveling left in me,’ Chad said. His mouth and throat were dry, parched by the sun.
‘We can cut through here,’ Starr said, pointing out an alley that ran between a blacksmith’s shed and a cobbler’s shop. The ground there was oily and stank of slag. Chad was only thinking how good a mug of beer would go right now. He glanced up to look for FitzRoy’s saloon and saw two men, indistinct shadows in the close alley, standing in front of them.
‘Watch it, Starr,’ he breathed, and Starr glanced that way.
‘Friends of yours?’ Starr asked.
‘I only know the one by name: the big one. Domino Jones, and he’s no friend of mine.’
‘What do they want?’
‘I’d have to guess, but it’s nothing good,’ Chad muttered.
As they approached, both of the waiting men spread their feet, bracing themselves. Their hands dangled loosely near their handguns.
‘Hey, Tanglefoot!’ Domino Jones bellowed. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
Chad and Starr halted, sizing the men up, but it was only seconds later that Jones drew his Colt and drew back the hammer. Chad flailed at his holster, trying to draw his own weapon, but was far too slow. As Jones’s companion also drew his gun Chad saw Starr draw with remarkable swiftness and fire three shots at the two of them.
Domino Jones swung around, dropping his gun, holding his injured arm with his other hand. The second man, slighter, bearded, was not so lucky. One of Starr’s bullets took him full in the throat. Where the other shot went was anyone’s guess, but it didn’t matter. The bearded man lay crumpled up, dead, against the alley floor.
Chad heard Starr curse. There was movement in the blacksmith’s shop, and a head peered out. Gun smoke still drifted in the air. ‘I must be out of practice,’ Starr muttered. ‘I was trying to just wound the both of them.’
Chad, who had drawn his gun by now, simply stared as the unarmed Domino Jones fled the scene of the gunfight and the other man, after a moment’s reflexive twitching, lay still against the oily alley floor. A few ambitious flies had already settled on him.
‘Starr, you’re a wonder,’ Chad said admiringly.
‘Am I?’ Starr replied dourly. ‘My first day in town, I kill a man I don’t even know. What’s usually done in these cases?’ he asked, looking at the dead man.
‘You forget I’ve only been here a day longer than you,’ Chad answered. ‘Report it to the town marshal, I expect.’
‘All right,’ Starr said with a sigh. ‘I wish we had a witness or two.’
‘The smith saw it,’ Chad said, nodding toward the building.
‘Did he? I hope so. I don’t feel like going to jail, and I haven’t got a pony to escape on. All right,’ he sighed again, ‘let’s turn ourselves in to the law.’
‘We’d better,’ Chad said.
‘If we manage to wriggle out of this, I still mean to have me some beer. I thought I would have two of them, but now … I might need a few more than that.’
FOUR
Marshal Ben Cody was a pouched, baggy-eyed man who had a world-defeated expression on his fallen face. He looked as if he had forgotten whatever it was that had drawn him to Las Palmas, and that it was no longer even of importance to him.
‘What is it, boys?’ he asked as Starr and Chad entered his dry-heated office. He swung his feet to the floor as if it pained him to stir that much.
‘Two men tried to mug us,’ Chad said.
‘We left one of them dead,’ Starr chipped in. He was moving around the room, examining the Wanted posters, the map of the territory on the wall.
‘Dead,’ the marshal said. That meant he would have to move from his chair, which from the look of his nearly 300 pounds, would require a lot of unwelcome effort. ‘Who was it that was killed?’
‘We didn’t know him,’ Chad said. ‘Two men braced us with drawn guns.…’
The door behind Chad had opened and Glen Walker and the banker, Sam Pettit entered, leaving the door open to the hot glare of the day. Glen Walker spoke up.
‘It was Charlie Burnett. He and Domino Jones tried to waylay this man – the two of them,’ Walker said, noticing Starr for the first time.
‘Domino Jones is over at the doctor’s, getting his arm patched up,’ Sam Pettit put in. ‘These two young, honorable men instead of slinking away have come to the law to explain.’
Marshal Cody who seemed to have a dubious respect for the banker, listened to him and asked, still without rising. ‘Any idea why Domino Jones would try to stick up these two?’ He looked in turn from Walker to Pettit, to Chad and Starr.
‘I do,’ Byron Starr said. He plucked the letter of commendation from Chad’s pocket, handing it to Glen Walker instead of the lawman. ‘I think it had something to do with the robbery attempt out on the Lone Pine road.’
‘But, why…?’ Marshal Cody asked, not comprehending. Glen Walker interrupted him.
‘I’ll tell you why,’ he said, showing the banker the commendation before tossing it on the marshal’s desk. ‘It was Domino Jones’s gang that tried to hold up that stage. They didn’t get the cash, and they meant to take their payment in blood by killing Charles Dempster here.’
‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ the marshal admitted, studying the letter from the banker in Diablo.
‘This young man is a hero,’ Sam Pettit said, placing a hand on Chad’s shoulder. ‘If you won’t take my word for it – and that of my brother – why don’t we just wait and see if Domino Jones comes to report a crime against him.’
‘That’ll never happen,’ Glen Walker said.
‘I was there,’ Starr volunt
eered. ‘That’s exactly the way everything happened. I’m not sure, but I think the town blacksmith witnessed it, too.’
‘You might ask Meyer about the shooting,’ the banker said. ‘That’s not too far for you to walk, is it?’ There was a hint of sarcasm in Pettit’s voice.
‘I’ll talk to the smith and see what Domino has to say – if he ever shows up,’ Cody said, stretching his huge flaccid arms and rising. ‘I can’t see any reason to hold these two boys right now, seeing that both you and Walker are vouching for them.’
Cody rose heavily from his chair, grabbed his hat and strolled, or rather, waddled, across the street toward the blacksmith’s – Meyer’s – shop. Doing that and seeing that Charlie Burnett’s remains were disposed of were all that he could do, or was inclined to do, at that point.
‘Well, men,’ Glen Walker said, ‘what do you say we have a talk about your futures – yours especially, Chad? I have plans for you.’
‘Do you? I was hoping you might have some idea of how to keep me working,’ Chad said. ‘And Starr, too, of course.’
‘Starr? That’s your name is it?’
‘That’s it,’ Byron Starr answered. ‘As for any help you could give me, Walker, I’d appreciate it greatly. But for now Chad and I have an appointment to keep over at this FitzRoy place down the street.’
Walker smiled. ‘I understand you, Starr. I’d ask to go along with you, but Carmalita has her mind set on going out to dinner, and I never disappoint a lady.’
‘We met her cousin,’ Chad said as the group of men stepped outside. ‘Candida – that’s it, isn’t it, Starr?’
‘You know it is,’ Starr said drily.
‘I’ve never met her,’ Walker said. ‘How is she looking?’
‘Fine,’ Chad said looking down at the ground. ‘She’s looking just fine, sir.’
‘Does she … I hope she doesn’t resemble her aunts too much?’
‘She weighs about a hundred and ten pounds, and well distributed they are,’ Starr said. Chad felt his face redden. Walker grinned.
