City of Widows

by Loren D. Estleman

  And there was something else. I’d dismissed that claim of descendancy from Montezuma as an empty boast; now I wasn’t so sure. I had always heard Aztecs were extinct, but once when Judge Blackthorne had kept me waiting in his chambers I saw a woodcut in one of his thumb-blurred books showing ancient Indians greeting the Conquistadores, and Miguel Axtaca was the closest thing to them I’d encountered. Indians in general are easy to read, but whatever thoughts were going on behind that crudely hewn face were as hidden as his weapon.

  “We do our drinking here.” Evidently the Mexican on the left was the spokesman for the group.

  “I’m not here to drum up business. I have something to discuss with Señor Axtaca.”

  “No señor.” This from the man himself, in a voice that grated from disuse. “Just Axtaca. Miguel to my friends. What do you wish to discuss?”

  “It’s private.”

  “Everything is private with you white men. Then you whisper it in the ears of your whores and it is known all over.”

  “It’s about Ross Baronet.”

  “I have heard this name and so have these men. Speak if you will speak.”

  “It’s really for your boss. I want to meet with him to discuss bringing Ross Baronet to justice.”

  “Mexico is a republic where all men are free. You may go there and see him. My permission is not necessary.”

  “That’s not how it works,” I said. “Not in your country, and not in mine. It’s supposed to but it’s not. Where and when can I meet with him?”

  The man on the right spoke for the first time. His Spanish was too rapid for me to follow. Axtaca replied more slowly in a dialect I had never run across before. The conversation took place with neither of them taking their eyes off me. I felt like something on the auction block.

  The foreman switched back to English. “We go from here tomorrow at first light. You may come or not. We will not wait.”

  “How far is it to the ranch?”

  “You are on it now.”

  I wanted to pursue that one, but he exerted pressure on Clara California’s hand and she rose from the floor and climbed onto his lap, and I decided the interview was over. I took my leave.

  “Old Don Segundo’s got a bug up his ass about San Sábado,” Junior said when I joined him at the Princess, where he was drinking his nightly glass of hot water before retiring. “His great-great-granddaddy or somebody got five million acres from King Ferdinand for burning heretics or somesuch and no Mexican War is going to change his conviction that we’re all of us squatting.”

  “Give a man a grant for all eternity and he will take it seriously every time,” I said. “Does he do anything about it besides write angry letters to Santa Fe?”

  “Fifteen years ago he got up his own army and led it into the field for Juárez. He had three horses shot out from under him at Santillo. They say he is still known down there as the White Lion. Then when the new president had the cojones to tax him he backed the Díaz revolution. That came close to busting him when it fell apart, but when Juárez died and Díaz came to power the old bastard found himself right welcome in Mexico City. They say he personally hung better than a hundred men for rustling his stock before he lost the use of his legs. Then he got surly.”

  “What happened to his legs?”

  “Horse fell on him or something. I guess he learned you don’t go around busting remudas past seventy, but I wouldn’t count on it. He’s a stubborn old cob. What makes him so interesting all of a sudden?”

  “I ran into his foreman tonight at the Mare’s Nest.”

  His forehead creased. “You talked to Miguel Axtaca?”

  “If you can call it that. He is no conversationalist.”

  “He’s a savage is what he is. He sacrifices goats and the reason he only sacrifices goats is Don Segundo was running out of vaqueros. Clara California’s the only whore in MacNutt’s string will go with him. She’s as crazy as a duck that flies backwards. What would you have to talk about with Miguel Axtaca?”

  “He’s taking me to see the old man tomorrow at daybreak.”

  He had started to raise his glass. Now he set it down. “You looking for cattle work? I can tell you now, I’ve had a bet with Colleen since the day you left to go talk to the sheriff that you wouldn’t last six months in the saloon business, but I thought it was marshaling you’d go back to. I was sure you had your fill of leather on the hoof a long time ago.”

  “Colleen bet I’d stay with saloon work?”

  “She couldn’t pass up the odds. If you miss ranching so much, what’s wrong with working for John Whiteside? He’s American and the climate beats old Mexico.”

  “I wouldn’t go back to the cattle trade for a Yankee dollar. I thought you knew me better than that.”

  “I know you good enough to know when you don’t answer a question it means you don’t like the question any better than I’m fixing to like the answer.”

  Irish Andy had stopped polishing glasses. I sat forward and lowered my voice. “I’m going after Ross Baronet. I figure the only man in the area who wants him more than I do is the old don. I’m hoping he’ll help me outfit a posse.”

  He grasped my forearm suddenly. The tensile strength in Junior’s fingers always came as a surprise to those who shook hands with him. “Page, he didn’t get anything from the Princess. Two of his men dead is what he got. What are you out to prove?”

  “You wouldn’t understand it. It doesn’t make any sense. I never stood still for a stickup all the time I rode for Blackthorne. The only difference is this time I’m riding for myself.”

  “Maybe you forgot he’s Frank Baronet’s brother. Apart from the fact he’s our new partner, this is his county. You calculate he’s going to just sit there on his fancy pillow while you ride Ross down?”

  “I’m curious to see just what he does. He’s on record as having Ross dead and buried in Mexico. His constituents might fall to wondering what he stands to gain by protecting a corpse.”

  “You know what I think? I think he don’t care what his constituents think. I think if it’s you or his brother he’ll pick his brother a hundred times out of a hundred, dead or alive. You’re my friend and I’ll miss you, but this don’t figure to stop with you. This here is the first chance I’ve had since my old man died to show I pump Harper blood. I’m not about to lose it on account of you can’t remember you handed in your papers. Don’t do this thing, Page.”

  “It might not pan out. If it does, Marshal Ortiz has agreed to head up the posse. It’s every citizen’s duty to help out when the peace is broken.”

  “Ortiz couldn’t head up an expedition to locate his fat ass. Baronet’s going to know who’s in charge.”

  “I’m not asking your permission, Junior. I’m just letting you know what’s in the wind so you’ll be prepared. If the sheriff comes around looking for answers, tell him you don’t know where I’ve gone.”

  “I kind of hoped my last words would have a better ring.”

  “He’s not going to hurt you or the Princess. He’s not going to do anything that will jeopardize his investment.”

  “That’s what you had in mind when you brought him up, isn’t it?” he said. “You had this worked out even before Ross hit the place. What’s your game, Page? It sure isn’t poker.”

  “I’ll tell you what it is.”

  Colleen Bower had closed her faro game and seen off her last customer. Now she swung a chair out from the table next to ours and sat down. She had a black choker around her throat with a green stone that drew the eye down the front of her dress and away from the cards. The pupils of her eyes glittered as large and bright as dimes—the application of belladonna without causing instant death is an art—and her hair was arranged in sausage curls the way it was the first time we met, two summers and a thousand years ago. Irish Andy was there immediately with the cup of tea she favored when her work was done. The big squarehead had a crush on her the size of Düsseldorf.

  When he had withdrawn s
he said, “Being the law, that’s Mr. Murdock’s game.”

  “I admit I have a turn for it,” I said. “I thought I could quit cold, but maybe I can taper off. There’s always a call for men to ride posse.”

  “I don’t mean it’s in your blood. I mean it’s your game. The same game you’ve been playing since before we met. You’re still playing it.”

  “Get it out of your craw, Colleen,” Junior said. “I’d have been married before this if I could just find a woman who says what she means the first time.”

  “I mean the reason Murdock can’t stop being a marshal is he never stopped.” She opened her reticule, removed a travel-worn fold of familiar-looking yellow paper, and spread it out on the table. YOU LEFT YOUR WALKING STICK IN HELENA, it read. “Next time you leave a woman alone in your room with all your things, think about emptying your pockets first.”

  14

  “WALKING STICK?” JUNIOR looked lost.

  “Blackthorne,” said Colleen. “You men are always playing games with codes and symbols, as if no one could see through them with half an eye. That telegram was sent the same day you wired us you were on your way to Laramie to look at a piano. That piano wears black robes and swings a gavel. It makes sense. It never did that you left Judge Blackthorne. The only way it does is you never left him to begin with. If this were wartime, you’d be hanged for a spy. I’m not so sure you still won’t be. I’m just wondering who is going to be standing in line behind you on the scaffold.”

  I said, “That’s a good deal to draw from an old piece of paper.”

  Quick as thought she drew the pocket Remington from the holster inside her reticule, cocking it in the same motion. I could see grains of dust inside the barrel. Not many; she took as good care of her weapon as she did her clothes and her cards and herself. “Junior, if I shoot him and testify he was pressing his attentions upon me, will you side me at the inquest?”

  I said, “You’re forgetting Irish Andy.”

  “Andy would side me if I shot Bismarck.”

  That was true enough. With the shotgun I had used on Dutch Tim well inside his reach the big German was standing with both hands on the bar and that cow-eyed look you saw on young girls gazing at a rotogravure of Edwin Booth. Not much help there. The Deane-Adams was just as inaccessible with a two-inch-thick tabletop between it and my hands. Jack Rimfire could retire on such a fix. Move over, Satan’s Sixgun. Make room for The She-Devil of San Sábado. The cover would feature Sylvia Starr in form-fitting buckskins with a Colt in each comely hand.

  “Junior?” I said.

  “Is it true, Page?”

  That startled me. His narrow face looked young, the lower lip pushed out slightly and his eyes as big as poker chips. I didn’t open my mouth. I didn’t have any words for it.

  “We go back some,” he said. “I shot a Nez Percé off his pony with a long gun when he was coming at you with a war club, and you up to your hips in river mud with a calf in your arms and your back turned to boot. You done as good for me a couple of times. I didn’t ask you down here to partner me because I needed your gun. I done it because we’re friends. Anyway that’s what I thought.”

  “We’re still friends.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know what we are, but friends sure ain’t it. I don’t know who you’re after or why and I don’t care. I hope you get him and it’s worth it.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Shoot out a lamp if you don’t want to put that pistol up cold. If you was going to shoot him you’d of done it before this.” He went out.

  “He’s got a point.” I held out a hand.

  This time Colleen shook her head. “Firearms cost money. You lawmen are always taking them off people and never giving them back. It’s no wonder there are coming to be so many of you out here. You can eat for the rest of your life on what you make off the resale.” She seated the hammer and returned the revolver to her purse. “I shot a police officer in the lip in El Paso. I might as well have finished him for all the yell they put up about it. I’ve got a policy against running foul of the law twice in one season or you’d be colder than my tea.”

  “Why the lip?”

  “I was aiming between his eyes but the floor was slanted. What kind of errand are you running for Blackthorne?”

  “We haven’t established I’m running any kind of errand.”

  “I know it’s not me. I haven’t shot any federals lately. A stray card or two isn’t worth your train fare. Anyway you didn’t know I was going to hook up with the Princess. I didn’t know until I messed up that policeman’s lip.” She pushed her tea away untasted. “It’s Baronet you’re after, isn’t it? Frank, not Ross. Bad lawmen always did upset your appetite.”

  We were speaking too low to be heard from the bar, but I leaned back in my chair and told Irish Andy to go home. I said I’d clean up. He took off his apron, got his mackinaw from the back room, said goodnight—more for Colleen’s benefit than mine—and went out.

  “That wasn’t necessary,” Colleen said. “You can trust Andy not to carry stories. Not because he’s loyal. He just doesn’t care.”

  “That’s why I don’t trust him.” I got up and went behind the bar. Under the top, covered by a mouse-chewed feedbag, was the bottle of sour mash whiskey that Andy ordered special from the distributor every month and kept hidden. I filled two glasses and brought them to the table. When I sat down we touched rims and drank. “When Judge Blackthorne took over in Helena he found a man sitting in the city jail waiting to hang for killing a Wells Fargo express agent during a robbery. The man claimed it was his partner who shot the expressman, but he was the only one caught. After interviewing witnesses, Blackthorne wrote to the president, got him to authorize a new trial, and acquitted the man for lack of evidence. The man’s name was Cocker Flynn. You never saw it in a newspaper or a dime novel, but he was the first deputy marshal appointed by Judge Blackthorne and he was the best peace officer I ever knew. Everything I know about the work I either learned from him or didn’t and went and found out later he was right.”

  “I assume this story has a point.” Her face was unreadable, her success at cards being in no way dependent upon the natural distractions of her person.

  “Just that the Judge didn’t much care if an outlaw turned lawman, or for that matter a lawman turned outlaw, unless he had something to gain or lose from it. My standards are no different. In any case the situation in Socorro County, New Mexico Territory is of no concern to the federal court in Montana.”

  “If your aim is to convince me that saloonkeeping is your only interest in San Sábado, you went the long way around the barn for nothing.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  She turned her palms to the ceiling. “Call.”

  I told her then, starting with Harlan Blackthorne’s intestines lying on the ground at Monterey and finishing with his vow to avenge the murders of Sergeant Uriah Spooner’s son and daughter-in-law by the Baronets. I didn’t tell it as well as the Judge, but then he was the kind of man you didn’t interrupt, and I had to talk fast to get it in between questions from the other side of the table. When I’d finished, and didn’t need it anymore, she gave me silence.

  “It doesn’t signify,” she said finally. “For it to do that, I would have to credit the Iron Jurist with humanity. Everything I’ve ever heard about him says he pounds that gavel to circulate his blood in place of a heart.”

  “I’d never play cards with the Judge. But I believe him in this case. No other explanation covers it.”

  “I hope my taxes are not financing this personal vendetta.”

  “You never paid a tax in your life.”

  She took another drink and rolled it around, appreciating it. Most of the stock we sold was best rustled past the tongue like doubtful cattle across a border. “What are you going to do about the Apache Princess?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. If I apprehend Ross Baronet I’ll no longer require it as a cover. Junior offered to buy me out the day I cam
e. I’ll sign over my end and you can reimburse me later, possibly out of Frank’s end.”

  “I cannot believe you think that transaction will go through.”

  “Why not? There’s profit all around. Frank knows a good deal when he sees it and you and Junior might as well have the use of his money for as long as he’s at large. Gold itself isn’t wicked, only its source.”

  “When were you going to tell Junior and me about this plan?”

  “When Frank and Ross Baronet were standing side by side on the scaffold in Helena.”

  “The conundrum to me is whether marshaling made you the bastard you are or you took to marshaling because you were born a bastard.” There was less heat in this than the words implied; yet there was heat. She finished her whiskey, picked up her purse, and rose. Looking down at me: “You didn’t say what happened to the man Flynn.”

  “A fugitive shot him last year. He died while I was talking to him.”

  She considered it. “Was that better than the rope? I’m curious about your answer.”

  “It was later, anyway.”

  “Serves me right for asking.” She started toward the door.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “Señora Castillo’s. It’s late.”

  I reached for my hat. “I’ll see you get there.”

  “I have the Remington for that. Your day tomorrow starts early, or have you forgotten?”

  I let her go. There’s no worse company than an angry woman, unless it’s one who is right.

  * * *

  A bluish glow, the kind that edges sharpened steel, limned the broken peaks beyond the Jornada del Muerto when I led the claybank from the livery to the Mare’s Nest, where Miguel Axtaca’s vaquero companions were slouched against the hitching rail, passing a cheroot back and forth.