The captain made a croaky noise in the back of his throat, which Leduc recognized as the signal that he was through talking and ready for his siesta.
Delaney sat down to pull off his boots, and Mincey took the Queen Anne chair by the window, pipe in his mouth and rattling a matchbox. Downstairs in the lobby, the grandfather clock rang out twelve times, reaching the ears of the men as clearly as if it had been in the room with them.
It was December 28.
CHAPTER 20
Kings lay still in his blankets a few minutes longer before removing the hat from his face. Above him was a deep magenta sky, smudged with eastern morning yellow. Flinging his bedding aside, he shook out his boots and pulled them on before standing slowly, stiff with cold. Still in that limbo-world between slumber and coherence, he moved like a machine, his hands working as if with a mind of their own. He girded his waist with the gunbelts, just so, then hugged his buffalo coat tight and meandered out of the ring of bodies to answer nature’s call.
The air was wintry, and the tops of the bull pines swayed under a high wind. He took his time heading back into camp, taking pleasure in the almost nonexistent sounds of a waking world before inevitably stumbling back into the harsh, rude sphere of clattering cups and pans, of men making less than harmonious morning sounds.
The one exception he allowed was the bubbling of coffee over a fire, which Charley Davis had going by the time he returned. Kings got in line behind Woods and accepted a cup but waved off a dollop of whiskey. “Go on, man,” Davis encouraged, sticking his flask out farther. “Really warm up your insides.”
Kings covered his cup with a hand and walked away so abruptly Davis thought he might have offended him. Yeager stepped up and waited until Davis had tipped the pitcher forward and put a little coffee in his cup before putting the man’s mind at ease. “Don’t concern yourself about him. He’s always like ’at before a job.”
Simmons had moved up by then and was blowing on his coffee. “How do you mean?”
“Uncommon quiet, face like the wrath of God. Don’t be surprised you don’t hear a peep from him till a minute before we go into the bank.”
Davis nodded his understanding and stepped away from the fire, eyes searching for Kings and finally finding him among the horses. He was tickling the nose of his big stallion, a smile threatening. “He don’t speak all that much to begin with,” Davis remarked.
They broke camp around eight o’clock, with the sun’s rays still leaking through the trees on their right, and headed due north at an easy lope. They had left Fort Sumner two days before, on the twenty-seventh, nine in number with the addition of Simmons. The new terrain obliged them to move at a slower pace than Kings might have preferred—they averaged about twenty miles a day. He estimated them to be at least another day out from Justicia.
Reaching a strip of river near noontime, they pushed through the trees another mile upstream until they came to a sandbar. It was occupied by two sizable wolves ravenously tugging at the remains of a bull elk. One of them glanced up at the horsemen before delving back into the open ribcage. When Kings nudged John Reb a step forward onto the sandbar, the same wolf swung fully around, flattened its ears, and bared its teeth. Kings fired two rounds into the air, and the wolves were forced to abandon the carcass until the men passed by.
A little over twenty-four hours later they came in sight of rooftops. The horsemen reined up at a high enough vantage point at the edge of the tree line so they could take in the panorama. The snow was a foot deep on the outskirts, but the main road leading into and through town had been cleared. Two miles long and one wide, the settlement in the middle of this long and narrow valley was cosmopolitan in comparison to the rough camp it had been six years ago. Where once it had boasted only one double row of buildings, there were now five rows—four streets and six cross streets—with structures of weathered false-front, brick, and stone.
No one spoke, but Kings felt their collective gazes from both sides. He sat his saddle a moment longer, inhaling a lungful of cold, high desert air before opening his mouth.
“Here’s how it’ll be. Os, you and Simmons ride in ahead of us and do what it is y’all two do best. We know what kind of reception to expect, but keep your eyes open for any fortifications that might have been made, any escape routes that might be blocked off. I don’t think it’d be wise to linger for more’n an hour, so when you’ve seen enough, head for them boulders to the east yonder. We’ll be there, awaitin’ your report.”
“When are the rest of us headin’ in, Kings?” Creasy asked.
“Not till tonight.”
“Say what?”
“Well, now, Crease, if we was to go ridin’ in nine strong in broad daylight, you expect whoever’s down there to just let us spend a peaceful night in one of their hotels? Expect they’d wait for us to strike their bank afore openin’ the ball?”
While Creasy, and every other man who had anticipated heading into town for the night, considered that, Kings continued.
“Now, I expect each of you boys to make use of your time. Get to know the layout of the town from the heights here, so that when we do walk the streets, it’ll be as familiar to you as your hometown. Believe me, our comin’ out of this alive will depend on it. We’re gonna ride in, three at a time, at half hour intervals, startin’ at ten o’clock. We’ll scrounge out someplace to hole up for the night, and tomorrow mornin’, we’ll do what we come here to do.”
“Catch ’em unawares,” Woods said, “hittin’ that bank a day early?”
“That’s the idea. Most all places of business are apt to be open only half the day, and, as it is, folks’ minds will likely be on other things, anticipatin’ the . . . big celebration and all. If there’s one to begin with. Any luck, we’ll catch them john laws with one leg in their pants and be able to breeze out of this town in better shape than we’d planned on.”
If the men’s confidence in the infallibility of this operation had been unstable before, the confidence that seemed to have taken root in Kings touched the general morale in a godlike way. It was visible in their faces and their saddle postures. The chatter of a woodpecker’s beak seemed louder than it should have in the stillness, and, in the midst of that chattering, Kings nodded at Osborn.
He and Simmons moved out, and the horsemen remaining on the knoll receded into the trees. Osborn, seeing that he was ahead, slowed his mount until H. E. had no other choice but to come abreast of him. Side by side, they entered Justicia.
The settlement proved to be more alive than it appeared from the trees, with townspeople on the boardwalks, horses standing three-legged at hitch rails along the street, and a farmer securing water barrels to a buckboard. Halfway through town, the newcomers passed under a canvas banner that had been stretched between second-floor verandas, with the words “Happy New Year” painted on. Thirty-eight-star American flags hung in windows, although New Mexico had yet to obtain statehood.
A man emerged from a corner café, and, by chance, his and Osborn’s gazes met. He was a bear of an old-timer in a bulky coat, the color of his eyes startlingly green under a gray Stetson with a hole in the crown. Even as his horse carried him farther away, Osborn felt he was being watched. Instinctively, he knew that old-timer must have been, if not the leader, a member of the posse awaiting their arrival. No, a man like that didn’t play second fiddle to anybody. He was the boss, all right. Probably sizing Osborn up for a coffin, eyeing his neck for a noose.
Dick hooked his horse into the rails under a sign that showed a dove on a branch. When he glanced back the way he came, the jefe wasn’t where he had been. Simmons was on the other side of the street, strolling across the boards with his mackinaw wrapped around him. For his own reassurance, Osborn felt the bulges of his twin sidearms, hidden between body and long coat, then shoved through the doors of the White Dove Saloon.
By this time some of the others were stringing a rope corral along the ridge overlooking the eastern side of town. The ground up there was
flat enough to lay out a small, temporary campsite. Brownwell spread his blankets and sat down to inventory, clean, and assemble the two spare revolvers he had brought along. Woods dealt cards to Creasy and Foss while Yeager and Davis carefully went down-slope about a dozen feet to an outcropping and settled in to survey.
Kings slapped snow from a sizable rock with one of his gauntlets, sat down, and took a long look around at the buttes, the ageless crags crowned by spires of black pines. He had hoped to sit a while, appreciating the peacefulness in his surroundings, to contemplate something other than what was coming, but Brownwell spoiled that hope.
“Kings?”
“Yep.”
Brownwell dabbed oil on an old shaving brush and began to lightly coat a pistol cylinder. “Might be a little late to be askin’ this,” he said, “but be square with me. D’you, honest to God, think we can fight our way outta this one without losin’ half our men in the doin’?”
“I wouldn’t be riskin’ their lives if I didn’t.”
Brownwell wasn’t satisfied. “You ’member what happened to the James boys? They got shot all to hell up in Northfield, and them squareheads never so much as looked at a gun ’fore that day. Here we are, goin’ to meet hard men, professionals. They’re gonna be settin’ up in their windows and on their rooftops, takin’ potshots at us like so many fish in a barrel, I’m thinkin’.”
Kings shook his head. “Don’t you go believin’ this is gonna be an uneven fight. All but one of our men are professionals, too, and we never stopped fightin’. There’s a big difference, Leroy, as you know good and well, between livin’ outside the law and livin’ within it, and how that makes a man.
“ ’Sides that, we got somethin’ the James boys didn’t—we ain’t ridin’ down there blind to the knowledge of what’s in store for us. The reason the toll was so heavy on your fellow Missourians was ’cause Jesse underestimated the folks in that Yankee town, which is a bad habit he should’ve dispensed with back in the war.”
“I dunno. Closer the hour gets, this starts to look more an’ more like suicide.”
“Fine damn time to say so.”
Brownwell shrugged, rolling the cylinder into place and thumbing the ejector rod down into its slot with a click. “Like I said. Figure you know what you’re doin’.”
Kings bristled for a time, not wanting to entertain the likelihood of defeat. “You’re damn right, I do.”
After enough time had passed for his sudden ire to die a natural death, Kings asked in a calmer voice, “You ever consider what we’ve been doin’ all these years is suicide?”
“Never did think of it that way.”
“How did ya think of it?”
“I don’t know precisely,” Brownwell admitted. “Just sort of took things one day at a time.”
Kings didn’t comment.
“I never asked you this before,” Brownwell said, “but you been actin’ kinda peculiar as of late and I gotta know . . . do you regret it?”
“Regret what?”
“Anything. What you done.”
Kings’s smile was wry. “What bothers me ain’t the doin’ so much as havin’ to do any of it at all; fact that I was dealt so rotten a hand with no other option left to me. I coulda hauled Clive Parker into court and gone about it legally, sure, but him bein’ a lawyer—” He shook his head. “I own about as much land today as I would’ve back then, had I done that. No, sir, old Sam Colt’s way seemed the only choice to see that justice was done.”
“Sam Colt’s the best friend men like you an’ me ever had, boy.”
Kings fanned a slow hand down his face and, with his next words, confirmed the suspicion that had nagged at Brownwell since early spring. “I’ll square with you on somethin’ else. Put plainly, regrets or no, I’m tired and I want outta all this . . . mess. Mind’s made up, Leroy. After this job, I’m through. You want ’em, you can have the reins to this outfit and welcome, but me—I’m about played out.”
Brownwell stopped what he was doing and looked up. “Hell, we’re all about played out, Kings,” he said quietly, but with a tone that hinted at bewildered impatience. “That don’t mean we have the option to get off the horse. They won’t let us.”
“I ain’t asked for another man’s by-your-leave since ’65.”
“They’ll chase your ass to the four winds.”
“Let ’em. They was to mount bloodhounds, it wouldn’t mean spit. Come a week from now, it’ll be as if I never existed.”
“I don’t like it.”
Red-haired Eli Cutting crossed to the window for what must have been the twelfth time. “I don’t like it one bit,” he echoed. “They’re prob’ly up in them hills right now, back in them trees, watchin’ us like buzzards.”
“Why don’t we just ride up there and surround ’em? You don’t wait for a snake to strike atcha before you smash it with a shovel.”
The speaker was another of Shepherd’s deputies, a bulldoggish Wisconsin native named Bauer. He was seated on the edge of the sheriff’s desk, facing the door, with a scattergun across his lap and throwing restless glances. It was as if he expected Kings to come barging into the office at any moment.
Dobie Bell, cracking peanut shells between his teeth, glanced at the clock on the wall. “You boys don’t settle yo’selves down,” he said, “you gonna be blastin’ at shadows all night. Those gentlemen ain’t due till January fust.”
“Oh, yeah,” Cutting said without moving away from the window. “They ain’t supposed to be here till January first, but there’s no tellin’ what a man like Kings is apt to do or not do. He’s no run-of-the-mill criminal, now. He was a sojer, so you can bet he’s got him a plan.”
“We never gone up against any like these,” Bauer seconded. “None of us.”
“Well, now, we showed the Drury boys a pretty rough time, as I recall.”
Cutting snorted. “Hell, Dobie, Ed Drury’s a snot-nose kid next to Gabriel Kings, and none of them other Drurys was old enough to’ve fought in the war. Kings, now, he’s seen action. Rode with ol’ Jeb Stuart.”
“Bedford Forrest, I heard it was,” Bauer said.
Dobie was characteristically optimistic. “Shep ain’t frettin’ about these boys too much. And we up to our ears in reinforcements now. That Stringer, he sure seem capable.”
“I worry about how quick he is on the trigger. He seemed plumb wore-out when we went to see him.”
The door clattered in the frame as Deputy Whitehead stepped in from the midday cold, and with him, their heavy-shouldered Mexican colleague, Arballo. Each man, fresh from the café, held a steaming plate of pork and beans.
Whitehead seemed to have heard Cutting’s last statement because he said, “Speakin’ of being quick on the trigger . . .”
All heads turned in his direction as Whitehead limped closer. “We just took a stroll down by the livery barn and saw a most intriguing sight.”
“What’s that, Fred?” Bauer asked.
Whitehead nodded at Dobie. “Hit the nail on the head, what he said ’bout reinforcements.”
Cutting chewed his lip. “Yeah, there’s eleven of ’em, ain’t there?”
“Y unos cientos más,” Arballo mumbled.
Cutting frowned. “Say again?”
“He said, ‘and a few hundred more,’ ” Whitehead translated.
“What’s he mean by that?”
Whitehead took a bite of ham. “They brought a Gatling gun with ’em. Got it tucked away in a stall, wrapped up in a tarp like a big Christmas present. These boys mean to bury Kings, if they can find all the pieces.”
Dobie looked at the floor and muttered, “I’ll be dog.”
“Mister, you just bought yourself a sanctuary.”
Kings thought it was an ironic choice of words on the part of the upstairs girl.
A roll of greenbacks slipped on the underhand and an odd request whispered into her ear had persuaded two of them to give Brownwell, the asker, and the others shelter for the night. They were
led up to the second floor of a combination saloon and cathouse on the outskirts of town, four or five men and two women to a room. Abstinence an essentiality, a good night’s rest a must, this place of ill repute would be their coop until dawn.
In the room closest to the stairs, Creasy was leaning back on the two rear legs of a chair with his boots on the windowsill, burning a cigarette down and contemplating. His ears were filled with a clamor of whooping and a tin-panny piano from the bar below, muffled by the locked door. He could also hear the snoring of three men—Davis, Osborn, Simmons—in the room around him, as well as the soft moaning of a painted lady. And then there was the rustling of clothes and scraping boot heels of a man getting to his feet. Hardyman Foss knelt beside him.
Creasy offered his cigarette. After carefully eyeing it to see whether the smoking end was lipped beyond acceptability, Foss tendered it into his fingers and took a drag.
“You know Kings said no diddlin’,” Creasy said.
“I heard His Majesty. I’s just pettin’ her a little bit.”
“You got a beef with Kings, Hardy?”
Foss evaded that and raised the cigarette a second time. “Speakin’ of amorous affairs,” he said, “I guess His Majesty’s got plans to be married.”
“Where’d ya hear that?”
“Man told me so hisself.”
“Finally gonna call the preacher, is he?”
“You mean you heard about these plans of his already?”
“He’s mentioned it.”
Behind them, the girl moved from the throw pillows on the floor where Foss had engaged her to the bed beside Osborn. Foss didn’t open his mouth again until the creaking of the bedsprings had died.
“Speakin’ only on the hopelessness of us all,” he said, “and not His Majesty in particular, but what kinda woman’d be desperate enough to marry a man like him?”
The Avenging Angels Page 21
