The Sonora Noose

by Jackson Lowry

  “I heard you were still out dealing with Amos and his wife.”

  “Word does get around,” Dravecky said. He hooked his thumbs in his gun belt and faced Barker. “I don’t depend on gossip for important things.”

  “You learn that down in Hell’s Half Acre?”

  “There and other places in Texas.” He took a deep breath and continued. “There’s only one lawman in Mesilla. I’m it.”

  “I got jurisdiction,” Barker said, irritated, yet understanding what Dravecky meant. “My jurisdiction runs throughout all of southern New Mexico Territory.”

  “For federal crimes. For crimes the federal marshal thinks important enough to post rewards on.”

  “Marshal Armijo can’t be everywhere all the time. He gives his deputies leeway.”

  “Not in Mesilla. In Mesilla I’m the one who enforces the law. If you got a federal criminal to arrest, you clear it with me first. That understood?”

  “We got off on a bad foot, Marshal ...” Barker started. He didn’t get any farther.

  “Damn right we did.” Without letting Barker offer a drink to smooth ruffled feathers, Dravecky whirled about and stalked off.

  Some men were always touchy, Barker knew, and Dravecky wasn’t comfortable enough in his position yet. That had to explain his attitude.

  He turned to go back into the Plugged Nickel, then touched the brown bottle he had taken from the gambler’s luggage. Laudanum. Powerful stuff. And the liquor he had swilled earlier was wearing off. Fingers curled around the bottle in his pocket, Barker began walking slowly toward the stables. It was time to go home to Ruth, if she’d have him, smelling of whiskey the way he still did.

  11

  THE SOUND OF GUNFIRE DISTURBED AN OTHERWISE idyllic day. Mason Barker stood up in his stirrups and put his hand to his eyes to shield them from the blazing sun. Turning slowly, he tracked the direction of the shots. It might be nothing, but why would anybody in their right mind be hunting in the middle of the day, under the hot sun? Rabbits were too smart to venture out in this heat, but maybe a traveler had come across a snake and was taking care of it.

  The heat reminded Barker that no snake with a whit of common sense would be out, either.

  He turned his mare’s head and gently tapped with the reins. It didn’t seem to be a matter where hurrying would gain him anything, and by taking it slow and easy the past week or so, he had found a contentment lost years back. Not locking horns with the new marshal in Mesilla helped. Keeping away from town allowed him to concentrate on his federal duties. And since he had found that little brown bottle of medicine in the gambler’s luggage and appropriated it, a drop or two of the laudanum had taken care of his backache—and a damn sight more.

  Since he didn’t have to drink to kill the pain, he wasn’t coming home reeking of beer, or worse even—drunk. That pleased Ruth, and her disposition had mellowed considerably. The only thing that refused to go his way was Nate, but he hadn’t heard anything bad about his boy, so he had to count that as good news. By moving out of the house the way he had, Nate would be forced to rely on himself. That’d put a little steel in his spine and might make him a tad more amenable when he finally got around to passing by.

  It did a boy good to live in a man’s world and find responsibilities. In this day and age, with things the way they were, getting by was hard work. That would straighten Nate right up.

  Barker followed the base of a sand dune and came to a halt when he saw the main road leading from El Paso to Mesilla. He had been a few miles to the south serving process for a new judge over in El Paso and had not bothered to follow the sunbaked dirt track but rather had cut across country to save time. Even this had gone well for him. Not only had he not gotten lost, he had served the papers and earned himself the tidy sum of ten dollars for the duty.

  But this? He heard more gunfire, sporadic and followed by the clank of chains and the creaking of leather harness. Then all hell broke loose. He might as well have been in the middle of one of those big battles the veterans of the war were always spinning yarns on. From the amount of lead that had to be flying, he imagined two vast armies crashing together at Gettysburg.

  He pulled his rifle from the saddle sheath, levered in a round, and heaved a deep sigh. The day had been going way too good to end without some problem coming his way. Winchester clutched tight and pulled into his shoulder, he guided the horse onto the road and toward the ragged gunfire. At least the sounds were more like a dozen men firing instead of an entire regiment.

  Trotting forward, he rounded a bend in the road and found the stagecoach mired in the soft sand of a dune. The driver had been forced off to the side and had foolishly tried to escape through the desert rather than staying with the road.

  More than a misjudgment, the attempt to flee had cost him his life. Barker saw a man sprawled on the ground, a whip still clutched in his hand. Barker galloped forward, ready to fight. But there wasn’t anyone to shoot at. The shotgun messenger was dead in the driver’s box. Judging from the number of bullet wounds Barker could see with a casual glance, the man had to weigh five pounds more than he had when he left the depot—and all of the extra weight was lead embedded in his body.

  “You the law?” A head poked up inside the compartment. A hand followed and a shaking finger pointed out into the desert. “Five of ’em. Road agents. They’re only a few minutes ahead of you.”

  “Five?”

  “All I saw ’fore I took cover.”

  Barker lowered his rifle. One against five killers was terrible odds, even if they didn’t know he was after them. But he was the law, and it was his duty to bring the killers and thieves to justice. Damning himself as a fool, he kicked his horse to a gallop and struggled up a sandy slope so he could look out over the desert to the north.

  A dust cloud was settling from their hurried departure, but now he saw the five outlaws. They were too far away to get a good look, but he knew one thing. The bandito riding lead wore a huge sombrero like the one worn by the Mexican he had chased down into the Bootheel. It had been too much to expect the vaquero to disappear into Sonora and never return. Barker lifted his rifle and sighted in, elevated the muzzle to account for the distance, and triggered a round. The rifle bucked and gave him a momentary twinge in his lower back, and then this discomfort faded. His bullet wasn’t intended to bring down any of the outlaws, but rather to vent his own anger and to let them know they had an implacable tracker on their trail.

  He wasn’t sure they even noticed his bullet. The slug probably drove itself into the dunes to vanish for all time. The road agents wouldn’t ever be scared of him at this distance, unless he got lucky and winged one of them. Even then, killing one of the murdering sons of bitches was out of the question.

  Barker made his way back to the stagecoach, where the passenger had climbed out and now stared at the guard’s body draped over the edge of the box.

  “My God, they turned him to a bloody mess.”

  “Driver didn’t fare much better. I’ll recommend no photographs unless the undertaker can fix ’em both up. I’m not sure he’s good enough to do that.” Barker rode closer and knew that wasn’t ever going to be possible for the guard. His face was unrecognizable. At least a dozen bullets had smashed into him, obliterating his identity. He might have been a handsome gent or the ugliest man alive. It didn’t matter now because not even a loving wife could identify him.

  “They hit us from both sides, left and right, just as we rounded the bend in the road and those sand dunes rose on either side and one was ahead in the road to stop, but the guard, he, he, the guard he got shot from behind so there was one behind us—”

  “Whoa, slow down and catch your breath, mister. There water on the stage? Get yourself some. Or if you got some whiskey, that’ll go a bit farther in settling your nerves.”

  “Y-you see this kind of thing all the time, Marshal?”

  “Not often enough to get used to it, but often enough to learn to hate the men responsible. W
hat can you tell me about them?”

  “They didn’t even shout to the driver to stop. J-just opened fire.”

  A coldness settled in Barker’s belly. That meant the gang found as much pleasure in wanton killing as they did in spending the money they stole. That was bad and would only get worse. When simple killing didn’t carry the thrill it once did, they would go on to more elaborate ways of murdering. From the look of the guard, they were well along that bloody road. A simple bullet to the head would have killed him, but so many additional slugs to his face showed that pure mean drove the road agents, not necessity.

  “You the only passenger?”

  “The only one. I’m on my way to Tombstone. I ... I got a job on the newspaper there.” The haggard passenger looked at Barker and asked, “Is it like this in Tombstone, too?”

  “Well, sir, let me put it this way. You won’t have any trouble filling the front page with news, and there’s a reason they call the paper there the Epitaph.”

  “I don’t know if I want to continue.”

  “Getting you into Mesilla is easy enough. What you do from there is up to you.” Barker rode around the stage and saw that the strongbox was gone. Where it had been bolted in the boot only ripped wood remained. The outlaws had yanked it plumb off the stage.

  “Why didn’t they kill me, too?”

  Barker eyed the reporter and shook his head.

  “Might be you weren’t good enough to waste a bullet on,” he said. Then a thought struck him. “You tell them you were a reporter?”

  “I ... I don’t remember. When the driver veered off the road, I was shouting out the window. Then they were shooting, and I don’t remember much after that.” He wiped sweat from his forehead, then replaced a dusty, battered bowler hat to cover the thinning hair. “I might have. I must have.”

  “There’s your answer. They want you to tell the world about what killers they are. You get a look at any of them?”

  “Not after I ducked down inside the compartment. I saw one. Got a good look at him. He ... he wore a huge sombrero.”

  “Did he have a fancy embroidered jacket, too?”

  “No, he wore a serape slung over his shoulder. A hole cut in the middle and it was draped. It was so many colors I can’t describe it.”

  “No need,” Barker said, trying to stem the flood of words before he drowned in them. “Identifying a man from the cut of his serape’s not gonna hold up in court. You see the face under that sombrero?”

  The reporter shook his head.

  Barker circled the stagecoach again, getting a better idea of how difficult it would be to right it and drive it back to Mesilla.

  “You up for a bit of work?”

  Barker didn’t much care if the reporter was. They got dried branches and fresh greasewood and creosote brush and put it all under the stagecoach’s wheels. Barker scooped away what sand he could to give some purchase, then climbed into the driver’s box. His nose wrinkled. The flies were already working on the guard’s body, and the hot sun had turned it downright noxious.

  “You want me to push? When you get the horses pulling?”

  “You wouldn’t budge this stage an inch. Put more limbs under the wheels if it looks like they’re gaining purchase.” Barker wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, took the reins, and got the team pulling, slowly at first, then with more power. He let out an earsplitting “yeehaw!” and snapped the reins just right to make the team bolt. The wheels turned, the reporter did as he had been told, and the stage pulled free to rattle onto the road.

  “Wait, wait for me. Don’t leave me!” The reporter ran behind, fearful of being stranded.

  It took Barker a few seconds to slow the team and finally bring them to a halt.

  “Not going to leave you for the buzzards.” He looked back and saw the carrion eaters working on the driver’s body. Dumping the guard’s body was a powerful urge, but Barker finally upended the corpse and let it crash to the ground, then fastened the reins around the brake, climbed down, and dragged the body to the boot.

  “Help me get him up,” Barker said.

  The reporter did the best he could, which meant Barker did most of the disagreeable work. Then he led his horse back to the driver, looped his rope around the dead man’s boots, and dragged him to the stagecoach. The short trip tore him up something fierce, but he was dead enough not to care and the buzzards had already begun their work on him. If nothing else, both driver and guard would get a decent burial outside town. That was better than letting the birds, bugs, and coyotes dine on them.

  “C-can I ride up there with you, Marshal?” The reporter made tentative stabs with his finger to indicate the driver’s box. Barker reckoned he didn’t want to be alone in the compartment. Or maybe the driver’s box was as far from the bodies as he could get.

  “Come on up, but you have to promise me one thing.”

  “Anything.”

  “Keep quiet and don’t throw up.”

  “That’s two things.”

  Barker glared at him, then smiled. The reporter grinned weakly but kept quiet. That was a good sign. He didn’t say two words all the way back to town.

  “YOU HAVE A WAY OF TURNING UP LIKE A BAD PENNY,” Marshal Dravecky said to Barker. “How’d you just happen to be on that road?”

  “Wasn’t. I had just served process for a vacate order when I heard gunfire.”

  The reporter piped up. “They attacked from all sides, Marshal.” Barker had seen how every foot of the trip back to Mesilla had built pressure in the man until he had wanted to explode and tell all he knew over and over. The threat of walking—or riding in the compartment just ahead of the two bodies—had kept him dammed up until they stopped in front of the marshal’s office.

  Now he wanted to spill everything he had seen, like a mountain freshet striving for the thirsty desert below.

  “I’ll get to you in a minute,” Dravecky said.

  “He’s a reporter.” Barker wasn’t above throwing a little kerosene into the fire. “Might make for a good witness.”

  “Not at a trial!” The reporter turned white under the brown mask he had accumulated from road dust caking onto his sweaty skin. “I mean, I saw them, but I can’t identify them. Not at a trial.”

  “Marshal,” Dravecky started, but Barker put up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

  “It’s your problem,” Barker said. He started to go.

  “Like hell it is. The robbery took place out on the road, beyond town limits. I keep the law inside Mesilla, not out there in the desert. This is your crime to solve.”

  “Your bodies to bury,” Barker said, taking an inordinate pleasure in dropping the problem into Dravecky’s lap. “If the stationmaster wants to put up a reward, let me know. And if your reporter here can sketch a wanted poster, I’ll be glad to carry that around and post it along the road.”

  “You know who they are, don’t you?”

  Barker hesitated. He had a good idea who was responsible but didn’t even have a name for the vaquero. If he crossed the man’s path again, there was sure to be gunplay. He couldn’t imagine the Mexican not wanting to put the same number of bullets in him that he had the guard—plus one for good measure. The vaquero might even want to indulge in a bit of torture. With the Apaches on and off the reservation all the time, one might have thrown in with the robbers. Expertise in the ways of pain was a specialty with them, especially the Mescaleros fighting their sworn enemies.

  Right about now, that might be any white man or soldier in the Tenth Cavalry.

  “Well, give me some names,” Dravecky said.

  “Don’t know ’em, Marshal. Sorry. But you keep alert, since they probably know you.” This time Barker did turn to leave.

  “They know you, too, Barker. They know you, too!”

  Barker didn’t reply, but the marshal’s parting shot hit the bull’s-eye. Barker was certain the road agents knew him and would take an evil delight in killing him. He needed to contact Marshal Armijo and find out
if there had been any sightings of the gang elsewhere throughout the area. Maybe he could get in touch with Lieutenant Greenberg and find out what the cavalry had learned as they patrolled the entire region. The more he knew, the less he had to worry about one of the gang back-shooting him.

  He swung into the saddle and started from town. He had earned his keep this day. He had money due him for serving the eviction notice and had brought in a survivor from a stage robbery. Hell, he had even taken a shot at the escaping robbers, even if they hadn’t noticed him.

  This turned him a bit morose. It was one thing to have the owlhoots hunting him down because he was a danger to them, but what if they considered him less than a horsefly? He was buzzing around, but did they notice or even care? He had been ineffectual doing more than ...

  His mare dug in her heels and tried to rear because he yanked back so hard on the reins. He settled his horse and stared hard into the Lucky Lew Saloon. Inside, his back to the door, the serape-sheathed vaquero was making sweeping gestures and laughing loudly.

  He wore the sombrero.

  Barker hit the ground hard and let his horse go, not even bothering to whip the reins around the iron ring at the side of the saloon. He dragged out his six-shooter and cocked it as he went into the Lucky Lew. Marshal Dravecky ought to have been there to make the arrest, but Barker couldn’t identify the vaquero except by the sombrero. This way he could spirit the Mexican out of town and get him locked up someplace where the federal marshal’s jurisdiction was unquestioned. One of the forts would be a good choice.

  As he walked into the smoky barroom, Barker lifted his six-gun and pointed it straight at the vaquero’s back.

  “You’re under arrest for the murder of the Halliday Stage Company’s driver and guard and then robbing said coach. Get your damned hands up.”

  Barker caught his breath and his heart ran away in his chest. Only force of will kept his hand from shaking as he clutched the six-shooter a little tighter. He expected the vaquero to make a fight of it. The man was going to be hanged for two murders and probably should swing for more than that. He wasn’t likely to give up easily.