The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  She returned with another armload of wood, flushed and breathing hard with the effort. Her hair was down and unbrushed, hanging prettily all around her. Her charcoal skirt buffeted around her legs, which he could tell were slender. She was certainly a nimble, athletic girl. She wore thick socks and men’s black lace-up half-boots.

  She bent over with the wood again and dared him with a look from beneath her blonde brows. Sartain looked away and tried to whistle, but his lips were too dry.

  She crouched to set some of the new branches on the fluttering flames. “Coffee?”

  “Please.” He saw his canteen resting against his saddle. She must have placed it there. It was also full, he realized, lifting it. He removed the cap and drank. The water in it was so cold and fresh, he feared it would crack his molars. He took several long pulls, thirsty, and then returned it to his saddle. He didn’t see his rifle or LeMat anywhere.

  As she used a leather swatch to remove the pot from the hook and pour him a cup of the coal-black brew, she said, “Don’t worry, they’re safe. And they’ll be returned to you in due time.”

  He took the cup from her with both hands. “What’s ‘due time?’”

  “When you’re ready to ride out of here.”

  “I’ll be ready today.” Sartain blew on the piping-hot brew and took a sip, burning his tongue and wincing. “I’m feelin’ fine as frog hair.”

  She scowled at him, as though he were the dumbest thing she’d ever laid eyes on. “Frogs don’t have hair.”

  He took another sip of the coffee, swallowed. “No, but you got some sproutin’ out of both ears.”

  “What?”

  “Sure enough. You probably never noticed, but you got a couple of old-man tufts!” He’d had a feeling that the only way he could get her to let her formidable guard down was through humor—at the risk of offending her and getting shot with his own LeMat, of course.

  She stared at him, not quite sure she should believe him. Then she clapped her hands to her ears, scowling. “I do not!”

  Sartain grinned.

  She lowered her hands and threw herself down against him, laughing. “You’re a silly one!”

  “No, no,” Sartain said, placing two fingers on her chin and directing her face to his. “You’re the silly one.” He kissed her. To his surprise, she did not pull away but squirmed closer, wrapping one leg over his and mashing her mouth harder against his lips.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him for a long time, groaning, squirming, making little grunting and chuckling noises. She pulled away, giving him a sly look.

  “Is this what you had in mind all along?”

  “No.” It wasn’t a lie. In fact, if someone had told him she’d be so ready and willing to tongue-wrestle with him after yesterday’s embarrassing little debacle, he’d have laughed heartily and deemed that person ready for the crazy farm.

  “Come on, now, be honest,” she said, poking a finger into his ribs.

  “Well, now that you mention it.”

  He drew her closer. While the mood change was shocking, it did distract him from the pain in his head. He kissed her, and she readily returned the kiss once more before pulling abruptly away.

  “All right, mister. That’s far enough.” She laughed. “See, I knew you were up to no good. A charmer with a dozen hands, that’s what you are!”

  “What’s your name, anyway?” he asked, holding her warm, pliant body in his arms. She smelled musky and earthy, and also of wood smoke and pine. “What the hell are you doin’ out here all by yourself?”

  “Me?” She laughed, friskily touching her index finger to his nose. “Folks call me Crazy Mary.” She put her nose on his, crossing her eyes at him. “How ’bout you, Mr. Hands?”

  “Sartain. Mike Sartain.”

  “Well, hello there, Mr. Mike Sartain. You sound funny, you know that?”

  “Funny?”

  “Yeah, you draw your words out real looong and give most of ’em a sorta swirl. Sorta musical.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I do like it!”

  “Tell me somethin’, Mary. Why do folks call you ‘Crazy Mary?’”

  “Ain’t it rather obvious?”

  Sartain frowned as though she’d surprised him with the question. “Not one bit.”

  She shrugged and looked at the fire. “I don’t know. Some folks say I’m touched in the head. They say it happened after the mine collapse when my pa and two brothers was killed, back when I was just nine years old.

  “Ma, she was the first one to go soft in her thinker box. We lived in our cabin up near Ute Ridge, just the two of us. We didn’t have nowhere to go and nothin’ much else to do, so we stayed on at the place. Ma, she hanged herself from a pine tree in the front yard one mornin’. Yep, she sure enough did. Lan’ sakes, I was never so surprised to wake one mornin’ and stumble outside to see her hangin’ there, just starin’ at me, tongue swelled up like a fist in her mouth!

  “First off, I thought it was a trick. Or a joke of some kind—you know, like the kind you play on people? But Ma never was like that even before Pa and the boys died, and even less like it after.

  “Well, I cut her down, just let her drop. And then I wheeled her in a barrow up to the hill where we buried Pa and the boys, and I planted her there, too. I stayed on at the cabin—”

  “All by yourself?”

  “Sure. Who else would be there?” Mary asked him. “No, it was just me an’ the mule, Aunt Sarah.” She snickered. “Named her after our Aunt Sarah because she’s got a similar stubborn streak. Hah! So, it’s just me an’ Aunt Sarah now, and I ride down to Silverthorne every once in a while to buy, sell, or trade. I forage for roots and stuff, make my own medicines, pilfer eggs from birds’ nests, snare rabbits, and shoot deer on occasion, though they’re so cute when they’re little.

  “That’s what I rubbed into your forehead and arm—one of my concoctions. It’s made of snakeroot, mule pee, pine sap, and tea boiled from shadbark berries. I just made some fresh. An’ gettin’ back to your question, I been overhearin’ folks call me Crazy Mary for years now. Several years, anyways. I don’t really understand it, but, yeah, I guess I’m crazy. Livin’ alone will make you different. Anyways, I don’t mind. I reckon we’re happy enough, Aunt Sarah and me. We get along.”

  She stared off, squinting against the brightening sunlight and the smoke billowing against them. Sartain studied her, his heart swelling for the pretty, lonely girl. She was right—living alone did make you “different.” He knew that from personal experience. That was why he tried not to stay alone for too long at any given time but always drifted on back to the vengeance trail.

  “I told you about me,” Crazy Mary said. “What about you, Mike? Who are you, anyway?”

  “Me?” Sartain blew on his coffee. “I’m a loner. Drifter. General no-account.”

  “Plenty of them in these parts,” Mary said matter-of-factly. “What’re you doin’ up here? Lookin’ for work up at the Painted Lady or somethin’ like that? You got big arms.” She wrapped both hands around his left bicep and squeezed, rubbing her cheek against him. “I bet you could really swing an’ ax or skin a mule team!”

  “No, I’m up here lookin’ for that stolen gold, Mary.”

  Mary frowned. “Stolen gold?”

  “Yeah, the gold that was stolen a couple months ago from Sheriff Higgins and his deputy, Jasper Garvey. They were haulin’ it down from the Painted Lady to the Wells Fargo office in Silverthorne, only they never made it. Neither one’s been seen or heard from since, and neither has the gold.”

  Mary looked horrified. “That’s terrible!” She shook her head, turning her mouth-corners down. “But that’s how life is, Mike. Greed rules the day. Human lives are even more worthless than the lives of fish and other critters, includin’ grubworms. To be honest with you, I can sort of see why.”

  “Well, to be honest with you, Miss Mary, my own thoughts on the human tribe ain’t all that different from your own.
But I was sent out by the sheriff’s daughter to find out what happened to him and to deal some frontier justice to those who stole that gold.”

  “Do you think the sheriff’s dead?”

  “Mostly likely.”

  “His deputy, then, too, I suppose?”

  “I suppose. Unless it was the deputy who killed the sheriff and stole the gold.”

  “See what I mean about humans bein’ barely above grubworms?”

  “I do, indeed.” He glanced at her. She seemed to range far and wide in the Sangre de Cristos. There was a chance she might have seen something suspicious regarding the stolen gold. “You didn’t see anything, I take it, Mary? Or any strangers in the mountains?”

  “Nope, not a thing, Mike.” She rose and removed the coffee pot from the tripod over the fire. “More?”

  “Sure.”

  As she crouched to refill the cup he held up for her, she said, “I sure do feel sorry for Miss Belle, though. Don’t know how she’s gonna manage without her pa.”

  “Oh? You know Belle, Miss Mary?”

  “Sure, I do. I venture down to Silverthorne four, maybe five times a year. Stay in one of her rooms when I’m flush. She treats me nice, and old Northcutt, he’s quite a cook!”

  Sartain chuckled. “He is at that.”

  “You hungry, Mike? You’d best eat somethin’. Help you heal.”

  Sartain sipped the coffee. The girl brewed a powerfully potent pot of mud. That first cup was chewing on his insides. “You know, I think I could eat somethin’. Don’t go to any trouble, though, Mary. I think I’m well enough now to tend to myself. I have plenty of jerky and biscuits in my saddlebags.”

  “Oh, hush!” Mary returned the coffee pot to the hook over the fire. “I’m gonna fix you a fresh pot of my good crow and bean stew. You’ll love it!”

  “Crow, Miss Mary?”

  “Crow meat’s delicious!” the girl intoned, wide-eyed, rubbing her belly. “You never had crow before?”

  “Nope.” Sartain shook his head and tried to smile. “Can’t say as I have.”

  “You just sit tight. One was cawin’ so loud this mornin’, he woke me before sunrise. I think I know where he is.” She set her coffee cup on a rock. “I’m gonna go fetch him for the stewpot!”

  “Be careful, Mary,” Sartain warned. “That bushwhacker might get to wondering if he really left me for dead and come back to check on me.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Mary grabbed her rifle, set it on her shoulder, and started off toward the woods, but then stopped and glanced over her shoulder at Sartain. “The whiskey bottle’s just to your left there, Mike. Help yourself. Don’t worry. I won’t tarry!”

  She winked and sauntered away.

  Chapter 10

  Sartain had to admit the crow stew wasn’t bad once he got past the idea of the dark, stringy, chewy meat being crow. He half-hoped the crow was the one who’d spooked him into falling prey to the bushwhacker’s bullet.

  He’d eaten plenty of squirrels during the war when there hadn’t been much else around, so he just pretended he was eating squirrel meat. Then it went down rather well. It helped that Mary had spiced it with wild onions and sprigs of wild mint and thyme. He chased every few bites with whiskey-laced coffee, and the meal was at once nourishing, invigorating, and soothing.

  While they were eating, he’d looked across the small fire on which the coffee pot stayed warm to see Mary staring at him furtively. When their eyes met, she flushed, chuckled, and lowered her gaze to her plate.

  Sartain wasn’t sure what to make of the strange, beautiful girl. He concluded that the handle she’d been tagged with was, while not very charitable, most likely accurate. He found himself feeling a deep tenderness for her. She did seem relatively happy, however. If he was to ever go insane, he hoped it would be after the same carefree fashion as Crazy Mary.

  He was feeling well enough now, the ache in his head merely a moderate if still occasionally pulsating discomfort, to help her with the post-meal chores. Sartain dressed in his denims and freshly washed and mended shirt and gathered up some of the dirty dishes. He followed Mary down the slanting crown of the escarpment and into the grassy woods bordering it. He followed Mary along a trail that dropped down into a shadowy gorge, where a tumbling creek formed a small, storybook waterfall amid the ferns and pines.

  Mary had hobbled her mule and Boss on the far side of the stream, where the grass grew deep and lush, and Boss appeared to be getting along fine. Spying his rider, however, the buckskin bobbed his head and whickered.

  “The sign of a good man is a horse that likes him,” Mary said, favoring Sartain with a fond glance. “That’s what my pa always said.”

  They washed the dishes in the stream beneath the falls and then went back up to the camp and set the utensils out on the rocks to dry in the sun and warm, dry, high-mountain air. Sartain was a little tired from the journey into the ravine, so he decided to turn in for a nap in the shade.

  He’d decided to rest another day and resume his quest for the missing gold bright and early the next morning. Mary also decided to take a nap and threw her bedroll down about ten feet from his.

  He slit his eyes a few times and caught her staring at him pensively. He wondered what she was thinking about back behind those deep, soulful hazel eyes of hers. But then, it was hard to know what a crazy person thought about anything. Sartain had known men who’d been “touched” after their bloody experiences during the War, and they’d seemed to be straddling two worlds—one foot in the so-called real world and the other foot in their folly-stricken minds.

  Sartain wondered for a time who his ambusher had been. The thought had been jerking at him ever since he’d awakened with his head aching. Most likely, he was the same bastard who’d fired that rifle at him in town. And, again most likely, they’d meet again soon. Only Sartain hoped the next encounter would be on his terms and not on his bushwhacker’s.

  Nothing like a notch in the noggin to make a man sleep.

  Sartain woke feeling as though he’d slept for twenty years. Blinking, he sat up. It was late in the afternoon but still warm. The sun slanting down behind the western ridge cast as many shadows as dreamy, fuzzy, salmon-lemony light. He realized what had awoken him. Someone was singing somewhere off in the distance.

  Sartain glanced at where he’d last seen Mary. There were only her blankets . . . and her dress and her shirts . . . her boots and her socks.

  A warm awareness cupped The Revenger’s balls, squeezing gently.

  The singing continued. He recognized Mary’s voice. The singing was soft and melodic, but he couldn’t make out the words. He caught only a few brief bars here and there on the warm, velvety breeze brushing over the escarpment from the woods. If she was naked, she was probably down at the falls bathing, as she seemed in the habit of doing.

  He’d best remain right here on the rock. She’d probably taken her rifle.

  Looking around, he saw that his Henry and the LeMat were now leaning or lying near where he’d been napping. The rifle was in its leather scabbard, and the LeMat was snugged down in its holster, the cartridge belt containing .44-caliber rounds as well as several shotgun wads coiled around it. His over-and-under derringer with gutta percha grips rested beside the LeMat on his freshly laundered and neatly folded neckerchief. His folding Barlow knife, which he usually carried in a boot, lay nearby.

  The big LeMat’s silver finish and pearl grip shone beautifully in the sunlight. She must have cleaned the piece. Something told him she’d cleaned the other two guns as well.

  He tossed his blankets aside, rose, stretched long and luxuriously, and then began place wood in the stone ring for a fire. He could do with some coffee.

  The singing, like the sonorous strains of dancing forest sprites, continued to careen gently up from the loamy gorge. Occasionally, Sartain could also hear the soft rumble of the falls. The girl’s singing, the birds, the gentle breeze, and the soft rush of the falls were like siren songs calling
Sartain to the gorge.

  He kept remembering how she’d looked, taking her sponge bath in the creek just before she’d started slinging lead at him. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, he pulled on his boots, donned his hat, slipped the derringer into his vest pocket, and strolled down the top of the scarp and into the woods. He followed the winding path down into the gorge.

  He looked around. There was nothing but the creek and the trees and the little falls tumbling into a wide black pool abutted by two large granite boulders. Chickadees peeped, while somewhere a mourning dove was giving its mournful song. Mary’s own music had dwindled until now he could no longer hear it at all.

  “Mary?” Sartain called.

  Nothing.

  Then he thought he heard her giggle. The singing resumed very quietly until it almost sounded like wind chimes tinkling softly above the pulsating rush of the creek, which dropped quickly through the bottom of the gorge, heading for even lower ground. The singing seemed to be coming from above the falls in a nest of evergreen shrubs and pines.

  Sartain told himself to turn around. He had no business down here.

  But then he heard the faint, ghostly giggles again, and they were like a moist feminine tongue in his ear. Compelled by the primal urges that keep all men boys, Sartain followed a game path up around the falls and onto higher ground. He looked around.

  A pool lay before him—a wide spot in the mossy rocks and trees that gathered the water flowing from the slower moving creek above it and that ran through a relatively flat beaver meadow into a pool. A deep one, judging by the oily blackness of its water. Pine boughs and ferns dropped over the swollen pool that gurgled quietly over the ledge to Sartain’s right that formed the falls.

  The girl’s singing and chuckling had stopped.