Tears of Blood

by James W. Marvin

  Issuing new and classic fiction from Yesterday and Today!

  Know what Crow used to say about livin’ by your guns? Said it made him like a kind of alchemist. Said he was the first man in history to turn lead into gold. Yeah. Meanest son of a bitch ever. Crow.

  No other name. Just Crow. Dressed in black from head to toe. The meanest man in the bullet-scarred annals of the West. Nobody ever turned their back on him. A cold voice in the shadows, a vengeful angel of death …

  Time was when Crow found himself holed up in Dead Hawk, Arizona. A time when the man in black wound up in jail. Killed a punk kid in self-defense. Then set loose to bring back Mayor Abe Varity and his wildcat wife, Martha. Kidnapped by a band of Apaches. Or were they? Whoever it was, Crow was out on the killing trail and folks had better watch out. Best not to tangle with Crow if you wanted to live …

  TEARS OF BLOOD

  By James W Marvin

  First Published by Transworld Publishers Limited in 1980

  Copyright © 1979 by James W. Marvin

  Published by Piccadilly Publishing at Smashwords: November 2012

  Names, characters and incidents in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading the book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Cover image © 2012 by Westworld Designs

  This is a Piccadilly Publishing Book

  Published by Arrangement with Elizabeth James.

  Time is for Rod Stewart, whose Olympia concert on December 22nd, 1978 was one of the most amazing and enjoyable experiences of my life. Thanks for so much good music for so long—this is just a small way of showing appreciation.

  Chapter One

  The greening came late to Kansas that year. Spring crawled across the chilled land like a beaten mongrel. Slow and careful. But at last it happened. Like it did every year. The frost easing out of the soil and the first fresh shoot appearing. Green out of gray.

  There was even a watery sun breaking through on the Abilene street that afternoon. Warm enough to bring the old man out of his second-floor back room to sit on the stoop and rock a whiles. Eyes closed. Letting the sun bathe him. It was something for the aged when spring came round once more.

  It was a sign. A victory. An affirmation that the winter had gone away and you were still alive. Maybe a good chance of seeing the summer through.

  A shadow fell across the porch, a loose board creaking under a boot. Enough of a sound to waken the old-timer from his faded dreams.

  ‘What the Hell you want?’ he snarled, wiping away a thread of spittle that had wandered from the corners of his lips. Looking up, seeing the man silhouetted against the Kansas sun. ‘Oh, it’s you. Ain’t seen you in…in a coon’s age. Sit yourself down yonder.’ Seeing the look of distrust directed at the rickety chair. ’Safe enough. Just don’t lean back too far or you’ll go clean over on your ass.’

  The stranger eased himself into the bentwood chair, feeling it give a little under his weight, nodding across at the man in the rocker to reassure him that everything was fine.

  ‘Guess you’re here for more tales about old Crow. Ain’t that a fact?’ Cackling at the nod from the Easterner in his neat blue suit. Speckled with Abilene dust.

  ‘Shouldn’t even have told you how it all began. Could have won a few dollars more out of you.’ Hastily. ‘Only joshin’, Mister. Just joshin’ you a little. You been mighty generous and that’s a fact. Hell, I surely never figured tellin’ a man like you about old Crow would have been like strikin’ at Sutter’s new mill. You want to hear more about how he left the Cavalry?’

  The other man shook his head. He’d heard all that before. It was one of the problems with the old guy. It was all in there. Like the gold at Sutter’s Mill, right enough. But there was times that his mind wandered off down some weed-covered abandoned trail and it was hard going to bring him back to talk about what you wanted.

  ‘Guess I told you ’bout that, huh? Well, you got to understand, Mister, that life don’t look so straight when you go back on it. Faces get kind of blurred. I seen a man lynched by vigilantes-up in … somewheres in Oregon. Neck stretched to about two and a half feet. Burst the veins in his throat and he drowned. Mighty odd way to pass on, ain’t it? Drowned in blood on a sycamore tree in Oregon. Now he had a moustache that was black with kind of silver tips to it. See them plain as my own hands.’

  He stretched out his fingers on the arms of the chair, looking down at them. The stranger looked too. They were old man’s hands. Spotted with brown patches. Unweathered, and frail. The nails looking soft.

  ‘Fact is, I can see that man’s face as he kicked away up that sycamore. Or was it an oak? Don’t recall that. But I see his face. And the way his pecker stood out the front of his breeches. You ain’t seen no hangin’, I guess. No, you wouldn’t. I seen some. But I don’t rightly remember what I had at that stinkin’ coffee shop for my breakfast this morning. Funny, ain’t it?’

  But it wasn’t really a question and the stranger didn’t bother to Held it, letting it fly on past him into the spring air.

  ‘I know there was beans. Give me dreadful wind. You suffer from gas, Mister?’ The old-timer didn’t wait for the reply. ‘I’m a damned martyr to it. Beans and chili. Ham. Couple of eggs over easy. I go there every lousy mornin’ and that painted yeller whore always smiles on through me when I get the check. Thanks for coming,’ he parodied. ‘Ya’ll come see us again. Have a nice day. Sheet!’ He spat in the dust of the small back garden.

  ‘What was I talkin’ about? Was it the time that Crow got hisself mixed up with that wagon-train of officers’ wives up north? Sioux country?’

  The stranger shook his head, beginning to wonder whether this visit might be wasted.

  ‘Guess I mentioned the killings down in Apache country. Them kidnappings and murders? I didn’t? Well, ain’t that somethin’, Mister? I’d have sworn that I had. By God but that was something. See them little plants breakin’ through. Old slut owns the rooming-house put them in. Clean, forgot them. Her dog shits all over ’em and she sets her sun-chair down on ’em. Still come through when the greenin’ beckons them.’

  At last they were on the right trail. The stranger had been down to the South-west a few days ago and he’d caught the scent of this new story down there. Just a passing reference in old papers and a couple of letters in the State Archives. Enough to bring him back up to Abilene. To sit in the sun with the old gunfighter. Maybe the only person living who’d remember the man they called Crow. No other name.

  Just Crow.

  ‘Guess you might care to hear more ’bout those killings down Arizona. Apaches. Clever sons of bitches. Once met that Cuchillo Oro. Pinner’s Indian, they called him. Surely was a big son of a bitch. Right hand was missin’ fingers. Soldier thought that had done for him. He learned.’ A cackling laugh. ‘I told you before what Crow said about never gettin’ stung by a dead bee. That was Cuchillo Oro. Some kin of Mangas Colorado. Carried a gold knife. Listen to that Christ-awful noise.’

  It was an aeroplane, coming in low over Abilene. Making the Sunday afternoon air shake with the thunder of its passing. The stranger looked up at it, blinking into the sun. Hoping that the interruption hadn’t broken the thread for the old man in the rocking-chair.

  ‘Odd how my mind comes back with things. Seein’ the sun all gold and that black shape. Puts me to thinkin’ of Crow. All dressed in black. Like som
ethin’ you’d frighten a kid with. And that soft cold voice. Hear that comin’ at you out of the shadows and you’d know you was livin’ on borrowed time. Just that yellow bandana around his neck. From his time with the Third. I tell you? …Yes, sure. I recall I did.’

  The stranger had only arrived in Abilene by train that morning. Finding the town quiet, with most folks at church.

  Above their heads the noisy biplane made another buzzing circuit. Bringing children out in the streets to watch and setting off every dog for miles around barking and yapping.

  ‘God meant us to fly then he’d have given us wings. That’s what I say, Mister,’ muttered the old-timer, pettishly. Flicking a fly away from his mouth. Spitting again at the small green shoots near their feet.

  The Easterner prompted him once more, afraid that he was slipping away. Losing the tale he wanted to hear.

  ‘Sure, Mister. Arizona. Apaches. Took ’em for a kind of …What’s the word?’ The stranger offered a suggestion. ‘That’s it, Mister. A ransom. By God, but there was surely some deaths down there that spring. Must have been seventy-seven. Year after Autie bought the farm up on the Little Big Horn. Seventy-seven. Sure. Lot of dead. Women’s tears. Not salt. More like blood. Yeah. Tears of blood.’

  Chapter Two

  ‘See that, old man. See that? I guess you ain’t never seen nothin’ as fast as that. But for lightnin’. Huh? What d’ya say, old man?’

  Any stranger to Dead Hawk was fair game for Bart Wells. A target for him to show off his skill with the fancy pistol on his hip. Slung real low and tied in place near the knee.

  ‘You must be kind of deaf! Maybe if’n I press this gun up against your God-damned ears and squeeze the fuckin’ trigger, then maybe you’ll answer me!!’

  Bart Wells was sixteen years and some months old. Skinny shoulders that barely supported the blue shirt. Long arms. The beginnings of a beer gut, already spreading the belt on his pants. Watery eyes that never smiled, unless it was at one of his own jokes. Or at someone else getting hurt.

  Around Dead Hawk, Bart had himself a growing reputation for scaring off drifters and nesters. It was a small and thriving town, Dead Hawk, and it didn’t want any undesirables riding on in and dirtying up the streets. Course there was Sheriff Ben Derekson. A tall man with the lines of a lifetime’s whisky drinking burned in deep around the eyes. Ben was there for real trouble.

  But he was laid up at his house on the edge of the township, right where the Arizona desert came pressing up to the back doors. A nasty saddle-sore that had gone poisoned was the word on the Sheriff.

  That didn’t concern folks. There hadn’t been any awkwardness in Dead Hawk for months now. The usual scares about the local Apaches! Maybe a steer taken or a horse that disappeared at night. The days when Cuchillo Oro had struck terror into hearts clean across the South-west were gone. Forever, some said. But old Golden Knife was still around. The shadow of the lone Mimbrenos Apache still hung across men’s memories.

  ‘I’m beginnin’ to get tired of you, you long-haired son of a bitch, bastard! I guess you better just walk out of here and get on that mangy animal out there and leave us to freshen up the air in here for decent folks.’

  Bart was enjoying himself.

  To his young eyes the stranger looked much like any other saddle-tramp that passed on through Dead Hawk. He had tethered a dusty black stallion outside the saloon. Owned by Sheriff Derekson’s cousin, Mike Brown. It didn’t have a fancy name like the Silver Dollar or the Golden Nugget. It was just called Mike’s Place by those in town. There wasn’t any sign. Nothing like that. A bar and a few tables. Couple of girls if that was your fancy. Bart’s Pa had stopped him going with the girls. But now Pa was up there with the angels for nigh on a year now. Hunting accident with his only son.

  Now Bart didn’t have anyone to check him. Folks round Dead Hawk admitted privately that the boy was a mite wild, but you got to have some gall to survive. Folks also admitted, very privately, that they were afraid of the boy. He was so unpredictable and downright dangerous when the mood was on him.

  ‘You had all the time, Mister. I’m goin’ to count to three and if you ain’t oil that chair by then I’m goin’ to shoot your damned foot off.’

  The stranger still took no notice of the boy’s shouting.

  The locals wondered whether he might be deaf. Or simple in the head. The only one who wondered anything different was the bar-keep, Jubal Taggart. He’d been around bars for years, and there wasn’t much he hadn’t seen. He’d eyed the tall stranger when he first walked in. Scenting danger. Seeing a latent menace where Bart Wells saw only either foolishness or fear. But Taggart held his own council. He’d never much cared for the boy.

  Bart stepped off a couple of paces. Eyeing the older man. It was hard to tell his age. Something close on thirty. Tall. But skinny as a fence-post whittled by the wind. Taggart would have used the word lean rather than skinny, but that was a matter of opinion. ’

  The stranger was dressed totally in black. Hat, vest, breeches. The rim of red showing at the chest where he hadn’t yet discarded his winter combinations. A touch of color at the neck. A stained yellow bandana knotted at the throat. The kind the Cavalry wore. But he didn’t look like a soldier.

  The hair was too long. Damned long for a man. Making him look more like an Apache. Maybe that was it. Maybe he was a breed. But Bart stared down again at the odd holster on the man’s right hip. No. A breed wouldn’t carry a gun like that.

  Wells had never seen anything like it. A deep holster, with what looked like the chopped-off butt of a scatter-gun tucked into it. No pistol. Not even on the left hip. That was occupied by an equally peculiar weapon. All that could be seen was the gold-tasseled hilt of an Army saber. But the sheath was a little over two feet long. Nobody would cut down a sword-like that. Would they?

  ‘I figured out what you are, stranger,’ sneered the boy.

  ‘You’re a deserter. On the run. Dirty coward. Stole a broken saber and a neckerchief. Maybe robbed a corpse for them. Well I. .. . .’ .

  At long, long last, the man looked up from the table, hands still cradling a shot-glass a third full of whisky. Behind the bar Taggart stopped polishing the empty glass in his hand. Watching. Suddenly realizing that he was holding his breath.

  Bart Wells recoiled a step from the table as if he’d been slapped. His hand dropping to the butt of his own low-slung gun. Eyes opening wide in what came close to being fear. A feather of worry brushing his mind that he might have picked the wrong man.

  It wasn’t a particularly frightening face. Smooth shaven. Longish, with a prominent jaw. Eyes deep-set and dark. Eyes that looked at Bart Wells and looked through him and looked clean out the other side as if he didn’t even exist.

  Looking up at the young boy, the stranger reached inside his jacket and pulled out a golden watch, flicking it open, glancing at the white dial, with the black Roman numbers around it.

  And he finally spoke.

  Afterwards, and for long years ahead, Jubal Taggart would describe the voice.

  ‘Not frightening. No anger to it. More like a kind old preacher talking to a child he’d found up a tree in his orchard. Real soft and reasonable. Almost a whisper.’

  That was how he described the voice.

  Someone else had once described the voice as being like a finger being drawn down a curtain of black velvet, but that might have been too fanciful.,

  However you call it, the voice made Bart Wells feel naked inside. Cold. Like he was standing by a hillside grave in winter.

  ‘You been talkin’ now for better than ten minutes, boy,’ said the stranger. ‘You keep flappin’ that mouth of yours and one day someone’ll come along and slice it off for you.’

  And he returned his gaze to the table, picking up his drink and sipping thoughtfully at it.

  Taggart glanced down at the shotgun he kept on pegs under the bar, and then thought the Hell with it and carried on watching. ·

  Bart was in a comer. One
he’d built himself. Locked himself into. Without any way to turn.

  Drunks had called him in the past. He liked that. Making them look stupid. Putting bullets in their knees or elbows before he finished them. But most dropped their tails and ran.

  This was different. Even he could feel it now. But he’d gone too far in front of his own folks to back off.’

  ‘What does that mean? You think you can do that to me?’

  ‘You go on home, boy. Git, ’fore your Ma finds out you ain’t there.’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like that, you skinny bastard.’

  ‘Lean, Bart,’ thought Taggart. ‘Not skinny. Lean.’

  Abruptly, the stranger stood up, and Taggart saw just how well-built he was. A couple of inches over six feet, but muscled like whipcord. As he stood, the coat rode up a little at the back and the barkeep saw the shape of a pistol at the rear of the belt.

  ‘I said for you to go home, boy. I seen punk kids like you in every damned town and shithouse settlement from here clear up to Oregon. And none of them worth the pain of the mothers that bore ’em. I seen them standing, with their mouths busy and their brains empty as a dry gourd.’

  ‘Oh. You seen them, have you, Mister? That don’t mean … ’

  ‘I’ve seen them die, boy. Coughing up blood in a dozen main streets or back alleys. Gut-shot, lingerin’ on for days. Or dead quick and easy. But all of them dead.’

  ‘I’m different, Mister; you just try me, if’n you ain’t scared.’

  ‘You want to be out there lookin’ up at the sky from on your back, boy? Do you?’

  Wells was aware that everything was slipping away from him.

  ‘I ain’t scared of you, none. Mister Whatever your damned name is!’

  ‘I’m called Crow.’

  It was less than a year after the Custer Massacre up in Montana, and Crow’s name and reputation hadn’t yet traveled as far south as Arizona. It meant nothing to the boy.