The Revenger

by Peter Brandvold

  Chance glanced at Maggie, who had turned back to the wagon. Then he studied Sartain again, skeptically. He was a big man, broad of shoulders, chest, and hips, with a firm, bulging paunch. He’d probably once been muscular, but now the muscle had turned to hard fat. Sartain guessed he was pushing fifty.

  He wore a cap of thin, curly, gray-brown hair, thicker around the sides than on top, and long sideburns. He wore canvas work trousers and a dirty, sweat-soaked underwear top and suspenders. He was sweating and sunburned, his wedge of a nose pink and peeling.

  He did not look evil. In fact, there was gentleness in the man’s big, fleshy, roughhewn countenance. His eyes were large and blue, and the deep lines at their corners told Sartain he was a man of easy humor.

  “Well, now,” Everett Chance said, raking his thumb and index finger through the two-day growth of beard on his chin. “I reckon, then, I should be thanking you, Mr. Sartain.” He didn’t appear to have slept much recently. Had he been up all night, worried about his wife? Most men would have been.

  “Not necessary, Mr. Chance.”

  “Sartain, huh? Sartain...” Chance’s heavy brow furrowed as he pondered the name, as though he might have heard it a time or two in the past. He might have. Sartain hoped he didn’t remember reading it on a “Wanted” dodger, because that could make matters even more complicated than they already were.

  “I do appreciate your bringing her back to me, Sartain.” Chance turned to his wife. “But I’m sorry you had to come back to this, Maggie. Truly, I am. But he was an old man, and he’d lived a good life. Leastways, as good a life as a man can live out here.”

  Maggie walked around to the far side of the wagon, placed a hand on the dead man’s shoulder beneath the blanket, and said softly, “I’m sorry, Howard. Rest easy.”

  She gave her husband a cold glance, picked up her grullo’s reins, and stepped into the saddle. To her husband, she said, “As a token of my appreciation for his kindness, I’ve invited Mr. Sartain to stay for a few days. He probably saved my life last night.”

  Her gaze flicked to Sartain, whose cheeks warmed slightly, before turning her bold, vaguely defiant eyes back to her husband. “He’s been on the trail a while. Needs food and rest.” She neck-reined the grullo around. “I’ll start lunch.”

  She booted the horse into a gallop down the hill toward the barn.

  Sartain watched her go. In light of what had happened between them last night, he felt awkward and ashamed in the presence of the woman’s husband. He turned back to Everett Chance, who appeared to study him suspiciously.

  The Revenger said, “I’d offer to help you dig, Mr. Chance, though I realize burying your own is a private matter.”

  Chance continued to study him for another few seconds, then stepped into the shallow grave and picked up his shovel. “I’d accept the help. Ain’t as young as I used to be. Got another shovel in the wagon, under the seat.”

  Sartain swung down from Boss’s back, loosened the horse’s latigo strap, slipped his bit, and then, letting the big buckskin graze freely on whatever sparse grass he could find on the bluff, walked over and pulled the spade from beneath the wagon seat.

  Chance watched him with that same slightly off-putting cast to his large, blue eyes. When Sartain dropped down into the grave, the men began digging in silence.

  Stabbing through the rocky, sandy soil was tough work. The Cajun could scoop up only half a shovel load at a time. Soon he worked up a heavy sweat.

  He paused to doff his hat and remove his shirt, wearing only his sweaty underwear shirt, the sleeves of which he rolled up his corded arms. As he worked on one end of the grave while Chance worked on the other, their shovels occasionally clattered together when they met in the middle, and he cast the man occasional, suspicious glances of his own.

  Was this an evil man? Had Chance murdered his young sons and now, having taken advantage of his wife’s absence, murdered his father? Sartain would like to get a look at Howard Chance’s body, but he saw no way to do so without drawing even more of Everett Chance’s suspicion upon himself.

  It was one hell of a coincidence—Howard Chance turning up dead just after Sartain had learned of Maggie’s fear of that very occurrence. Everett Chance did not look like a killer, but Sartain had known many killers who could have passed for parsons.

  Just too damned much of a coincidence...

  “Four feet’s deep enough for these parts,” Chance said when, a half hour later, both he and Sartain were standing that deep in the hole, which was roughly rectangular. The dirt piled to both sides was gray sand and red clay pocked with stones. “I’ll cover it with rocks to keep the coyotes and mountain lions out. There’s been a big female on the prowl around here of late.”

  Leaning on his shovel, he glanced at the other three graves lying about ten yards away amongst the cedars and junipers. Rocks had been piled over the mounded clay and sand. “Don’t look like she’s been at the boys’ graves. Her main interest has been in my hosses and Maggie’s chickens.”

  He grunted as he heaved himself heavily out of the hole. “Drink before we bury ole Howard?”

  Chance propped his shovel against the same mesquite his Spencer leaned against. Crouching, he lifted a clear, unlabeled bottle and pried the cork from the lip. He took a pull, shoved the cork back into the bottle, and tossed the bottle to Sartain.

  “Why not?”

  As the Revenger took a pull, Chance sat on the ground and leaned back against the mesquite. Sartain took another slug of the whiskey, which was by no means from anyone’s top shelf but more like panther juice distilled behind a Gold Dust Saloon. Still, it took the edge off the heat and the Cajun’s work-strained muscles.

  When he lowered the bottle, Everett Chance was aiming his Spencer at him. He racked a round into the old carbine’s chamber and gave a shrewd smile. “Sartain, huh? Also known as the Revenger—wanted by the U.S. marshals for gunning down cavalry soldiers in Arizona.”

  Sartain used the heel of his hand to hammer the cork back into the bottle’s lip. “There you have it.” He tossed the bottle back to Chance, who caught it one-handed. “You gonna arrest me?”

  Chance studied Sartain amusedly over the barrel of his Spencer. He lowered the gun, depressing the heavy hammer with a ratcheting click. “Nah. Don’t reckon. I heard Pat tell about you. Said if I was to see you in the county, to give you a wide berth... if I knew what was good for me.”

  He leaned the repeater back against the mesquite and dug a canvas makings sack out of a pocket of his shirt twisted on the ground beside him. “Besides, I do appreciate your bringin’ Maggie back.”

  Sartain climbed up out of the grave and stretched from side to side, working the kinks out of his back. “No trouble, Mr. Chance.”

  “Everett.”

  “All right, Everett.”

  Sartain sat near Chance and leaned back against a rock. Chance took another pull from the bottle and offered it to Sartain, who took another sip.

  “Sotol,” Chance said. “I know some Mexicans who distill it down in Chihuahua and haul it up here to sell. All the saloons are stocked with it.”

  “Grows on ya.” Sartain took another sip and handed the bottle back to Chance, who set it on the ground beside him and set to work building a smoke.

  “I suppose you realize by now, Mike... well, that my wife, Maggie, is... uh... touched some. You know...” Chance tapped his left temple, then continued dribbling chopped tobacco onto the wheat paper troughed between the first two fingers of his left hand. “A little off her rocker.”

  “Oh?” Sartain hadn’t come to a definite conclusion on the subject of the sanity of Chance’s pretty wife. Apparently, Chance had.

  “She rides off from time to time,” said the rancher, staring down at the quirley in his thick fingers. “Gets some crazy idea in her head, saddles her grullo, and rides out. Unfortunately, she rode out yesterday when I wasn’t home. I was off tryin’ to run down some horses that the mountain lion had scared out of my corral
the night before. By the time I got home and realized Maggie was gone, the storm was comin’ on. I rode out a ways, tryin’ to track her—she often gets lost out there, so toussled her thinkin’ gets—but then the storm come up, and the rain wiped out her sign. I came back... had a worrisome night.”

  Chance offered Sartain his makings. The Revenger waved it off. He glanced at the three crude wooden crosses. Probingly, he said, “She told me about your sons, Everett. I hope you’ll accept my condolences.”

  Chance poked the quirley in his mouth and rolled it, sealing it. He took it out and looked at Sartain. As he fired a match on his thumbnail, he said, “Did she also tell you she thinks I killed them?”

  Chapter 6

  “Yes,” Sartain said. “As a matter of fact, she did.”

  Chance touched the match to the end of his quirley and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. He blew it out and stared at the cabin for a time. Sartain wondered what the man was thinking. If he was thinking anything dark, it didn’t show on his face. He merely looked sad.

  “She started to lose her mind after the second boy was kicked by that mule. Became so protective of the third and last boy, Eph, I didn’t think she was ever going to let him out of the house. One day, she took her eggs to town. I was working at my anvil, trying to get a rim on a wheel. I was distracted for hours. When Maggie returned, she screamed. Then I saw the smoke coming from the outhouse.”

  “She said there was a rock in front of the door.”

  “There was a rock near the door. Winter frost pushed it up out of the ground. But it wasn’t within ten feet of the door. That door got stuck. Warped. Ephraim was a slight child. Apparently, he couldn’t get it open before the smoke took him. He must’ve tapped his ashes on the dried-up corn shucks we kept in a tin tub in there.”

  Everett’s voice broke on that last. Sartain glanced over to see him brush a tear from his cheek as he looked over at the trio of crosses amongst the scrub cedars and junipers. Chance drew a ragged breath, shook his head, and looked down at the cabin.

  “She blamed me. All three times I was the only one around. I never gave that woman any reason to believe I’d ever do anything to harm my children.” He turned to Sartain. A sheen of tears flashed in his eyes. “My boys! You understand, Sartain? What man would kill his boys—the fruit of my loins?”

  He turned back to the cabin. Gray smoke was unfurling from one of the two brick chimneys. “I don’t hold it against her. I did at first, but then I realized she needed someone to blame. I need someone to blame, too, so I suppose it might as well be me.”

  Chance took a deep drag on the quirley. “I love her, just the same. I remember how we used to be, Maggie and me an’ the boys, and that’s what keeps me from hating her for hating me... or for going out to the barn and blowing my head off. I love her. Always have... from the moment I first laid eyes on her. Hell, you’ve seen her. The prettiest woman in the county. But buryin’ those three boys caused her to lose her mind.”

  He sighed again, loudly. It was partly a moan of deep, untouchable grief. “But so help me, I love her. I hope she stays, but now with old Howard gone—I think she loved him more than she loved me—she’ll probably leave. She’ll ride out again sometime when I’m out on the range, and she won’t come back.”

  He shook his head.

  There was a brief silence, and then Sartain said, “She was worried something would happen to Howard when she was gone.”

  “I don’t doubt it a bit, Sartain. And now that old man’s death, which had been comin’ for a long time—he was senile, and he’d suffered three heart strokes over the past two years—only confirms her suspicion that I’m some sorta devil.” He took another drag from the quirley and flipped it onto the pile of dirt before him. “Oh, well. All I can do is love her as best I can and hope she comes around. That’s all I can do.”

  He glanced at the Cajun, smiling, one eye narrowed wryly. “What do you say, Sartain? One more drink and then help me lay old Howard to rest? I’ll fetch Maggie, and she can say a few words over him.”

  * * *

  “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Maggie tossed a handful of dirt onto the grave Sartain and Chance had filled in and covered with rocks. “Good-bye, Howard.”

  Maggie glanced at her husband standing beside her, holding his hat down in front of him. She looked at Sartain standing on the far side of the grave, also holding his hat. There seemed to be some unspoken communication in her look. Maybe a command for the Revenger to take his gun out and shoot her husband immediately. Also, there was a vague accusation in the gaze, as well, because she knew he was nowhere near ready to shoot a man he was far from convinced was a murderer.

  Sartain switched his gaze from Maggie to Everett Chance and found the man staring at him with that same suspicious look as before. Did the rancher suspect that Sartain might be here to kill him?

  “Lunch is served,” Maggie said. “Cold sandwiches and coffee is all, I’m afraid.”

  She turned around and walked down the hill toward the shack. She hadn’t taken her apron off for the funeral, far from a formal affair. The apron and her hair blew around in the hot, dry wind that had picked up now in the afternoon.

  They ate a quiet lunch in the cabin. No one said anything of significance. The deaths that had occurred over the years and only a few hours ago hung like one thick, black cloud over the crude but tidy Chance cabin. When they’d finished the sandwiches and coffee, Maggie excused herself for a nap and climbed the stairs.

  Before she’d disappeared, she cast Sartain one more conspiratorial, vaguely accusing glance.

  Sartain spent the afternoon helping Everett Chance repair a corral that some of his broncs had broken down while fleeing the mountain lion. Chance had several other chores that had needed tending—some that had long gone undone because they required two able-bodied men, and Howard Chance hadn’t been able-bodied in years. Chance’s operation probably wasn’t profitable enough for the rancher to afford a hired hand.

  Sartain rolled up his shirtsleeves once more and set to work helping Chance move the privy to a new hole and resetting a ceiling beam in the barn. By the time they’d outfitted Chance’s hay wagon with a new axle, another rain squall had come up, blocking out the light of the west-falling sun. The smell of roasting meat drifted to the men’s noses on the wood smoke issuing from the cabin’s chimney.

  They put their tools away and stomped off toward the cabin, Sartain feeling that calm, soothing exhilaration that hard, homey work often visited on a man. He supposed it was especially keen for him, a man who spent most of his time in the saddle, hunting other men. But he sensed from Everett Chance’s flushed cheeks and bright eyes and frequent quips and chuckles, that he felt it, too. He sensed that Chance didn’t often have another man around the place, one close to his own age and capabilities, and that the rancher was enjoying Sartain’s company.

  The irony of the situation was not lost on the man who’d come here to possibly kill him.

  On the gallery, they washed with fresh water, a fresh cake of potash soap, and clean towels recently placed out there by Maggie. As Sartain dried himself on a towel, he regarded Chance once more as the rancher scrubbed his face with his hands.

  If Chance was an evil killer of children and his own father, he was one hell of a good actor, to boot. Sartain wasn’t convinced the man was anything other than what he seemed—a hard-working, good-humored New Mexico rancher who’d been visited with one long run of bad luck, as had his pretty wife. The only difference was that Maggie Chance, sadly and understandably, had lost her mooring and was now wrongly convinced that her husband was Satan himself.

  “Thanks for the help, Sartain,” Chance said when he’d run a comb through his thin, curly hair and extended his open hand.

  The Revenger shook it. “No trouble, Everett.”

  “You gonna stick around a few days?”

  Sartain glanced around the yard. A light rain was falling from a sky the color of bruised plums, curling the hay-
and straw-flecked dirt. Thunder belched and hiccupped. “No, I don’t think so, Everett.”

  “You could cool your heels out here on the gallery and drink sotol,” Chance said, encouragingly. “Hell, in four short hours we did everything that I needed two men for! We could even take a couple of cane poles and maybe see how the bluegills are biting on the Pecos.”

  Sartain’s focus had now moved on to the hunt for Scrum.

  “I appreciate the offer, but I’ll pass. I’m not the sort to let the grass grow under my boo—”

  The cabin’s front door opened. Maggie stared out at the two men skeptically. She glanced at Sartain with that accusing expression again and then drew the door wider and turned back into the kitchen. “Supper’s ready,” she said coolly over her shoulder.

  After supper, Sartain insisted on helping Maggie wash the dishes. He hauled water in from the river, and, while Everett sat on the front gallery watching the colors of sunset splash themselves across the western horizon as the rain tapered, Sartain and Maggie scrubbed the pots, pans, and dishes.

  Sartain wanted to speak to her alone, but he saw no way to do it. Everett was within hearing out on the gallery. Maggie said nothing, either. She didn’t even glance at him as they worked together.

  That was all right. Sartain wasn’t really sure what they’d talk about, anyway. He was in one hell of an awkward position. He’d slept with the wife of a man he’d sort of made friends with, the same man his wife wanted him to kill. And he had no intention of killing Everett Chance.

  He guessed he was in a whipsaw of sorts. He’d be glad to ride on, which he intended to do first thing tomorrow. Scrum might have ridden to Gold Dust in search of medical help, so that’s where Sartain would head, as well.

  When the dark night had fallen, Maggie lit a couple of lamps. Everett came in from the gallery, grabbed her around the waist from behind, pecked her cheek, and said, “How ’bout I play some fiddle?”

  Without waiting for an answer, the rancher grabbed his pipe and tobacco from one shelf, a scratched-up old fiddle from another shelf, and said, “Mike, I like to play the fiddle of a night when I’m not too tired. Always helped us sleep—Howard, Maggie, and me. Why don’t you bring the sotol and three glasses and join us?”