‘You and Chester both.’
‘She’s bad news, Balum. Her and her family are mixed up in this somehow. You’re not seeing what everybody else is.’
Balum stood abruptly and glanced out the window. ‘I’ve got to be going. Trial’s about to start.’
‘Balum,’ said Randolph, but the man was already gone and out the door.
Balum crossed the street, dodging wagons and narrowly beating a small cadre of goats being herded down the dusty avenue by two sorry looking ranchers on the backs of skeleton horses. He walked with his head bent forward as if fighting a gale of wind.
Daniel Randolph couldn’t have been right. He’d been gambling, most likely drinking, and it was dark out. Why everyone was so set against Sara he couldn’t figure. She was a beauty. Was it jealousy? Doubtful. Neither Chester nor Randolph were the jealous type. Just overly cautious perhaps.
As though his thoughts brought her apparition to life, Sara Sanderson waved to him from the next block. Damn beautiful, he thought. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes glowing, a seductive smile playing across her face. He took her in his arms and pressed her body against his, feeling her breasts against his chest, her small waist. She giggled and kissed him on the cheek. He wanted to take her right there, throw her over his shoulder and carry her to the hotel where he would toss her to the bed and crawl on top of her, rip the dress from her tender body and press himself into her, lose himself inside her.
‘My,’ she giggled, ‘you’re awfully excited to see me.’
‘I am. You’re the only thing that relieves the stress I’m under.’
‘Aw, you poor thing,’ she brought a gloved hand to his face and drew her fingers along his jaw. ‘It’ll be over soon. And when it is we’ll have all the time in the world, just to ourselves. By the way, I talked to the manager at the bank this morning. The Denver Commercial. In order to begin surveying land and placing bids, our names will have to be joined together on the same account.’
‘The same account?’
‘It’s just a formality, dear. We can go in this afternoon and complete the paperwork.’ She drew close to him again and wrapped her arms around him. He could feel her breasts against his chest as she brought her mouth close to his ear. ‘We’ll be so happy together, my love. Now let’s get you to the courthouse.’
They entered through the double doors together and took seats on opposite side of the aisle. Ross Buckling was again present. Balum eased down next to him and they shook hands.
‘Couldn’t stay away, eh Ross?’
‘Things are getting interesting. Freed told me yesterday he’s expected to take the stand today.’
Balum only folded his hands across his lap and waited. Across the aisle he could feel Saul Farro’s eyes searching him out. He thought back to Randolph’s warning and wondered again if there was any truth to it. His mind turned it over. He found it hard to concentrate. Sara’s notion of adding her name to his bank account troubled him, though he denied it to himself.
Judge Vanderloop entered the hall and Balum’s mind let itself fall into the mechanical proceedings of the trial. The first witness to be called was not Johnny Freed, but the name of a public notary whom Balum did not know.
The man rose from the back and shuffled forward to the witness stand. He sat hunched and small looking, and when questioned he would squirm as if being forced onto a bronc he’d rather not ride.
‘You’ve seen plenty of penmanship in your line of work, this is true?’ said Douglas Crenshaw.
‘I have,’ squirmed the notary.
‘Have you ever come across samples of the writing claimed to belong to Jonathan Atkisson, Jeb Darrow, and this half-breed named Joe?’
Balum cringed in his seat at Crenshaw’s description of Joe.
‘I haven’t,’ said the notary.
‘So there is no evidence to support that the three affidavits Mr. Balum has turned over were actually written by those men?’
‘Well, their signatures, I guess.’
‘Have you any samples of the men's’ signatures?’
‘No.’
‘Is it possible they might have been forged?’
The notary shifted in his chair. ‘Possible, I guess.’
‘That’s all your honor.’
The notary returned to the back of the hall with his eyes on his feet as he walked. Ross and Balum exchanged glances and the next witness was called to the stand; U.S. Marshal Johnny Freed.
He raised his hand high in the air and shot his eyes over to Balum as he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but. In the witness stand he sat straight and important looking, a different demeanor altogether than that of the notary. His chin tilted up and his nose seemed to pinch tight in the center of his narrow face.
‘Mr. Freed,’ said Crenshaw. ‘Where were you when Balum brought in Mr. Nelson?’
‘At the jail, sir.’
‘Can you describe to me the state of the prisoner when he was turned over?’
‘I can,’ announced Freed in his loud pinched voice. ‘He’d been abused. Treated unfairly, nearly tortured. He’d been starved, kept from water, and tied over a saddle for so long that his skin was rubbed raw from his neck to his belly. He hadn't been allowed to relieve himself and you could see the damage that did to him.’
At this point the District Attorney objected. ‘What does this have to do with the case at hand, your Honor?’
‘It has everything to do with the case,’ said Crenshaw before the judge could respond. ‘What this treatment shows is a hatred toward my client on part of the man who brought him in.’
‘Overruled,’ the judge said from his seat.
‘Did Balum have any reason as to why he treated the defendant so viciously?’ asked Crenshaw.
‘He did not. In fact he seemed to take pride in how badly he’d abused the man.’
‘That’s all, your Honor,’ said Crenshaw.
The District Attorney followed. He put forward a well thought out barrage of questions to Freed, but the young Marshal was adamant and refused to back down in his assertions. He left the witness stand looking pleased with himself and scowled down on Balum when he passed him like a dominant buck having just bested his closest rival in an antler fight.
The court adjourned. Judge Vanderloop announced that session would open at noon the following day, and the hall emptied. Those previously packed together in the courtroom soon dispersed into the streets of Denver, and Balum found himself disappearing with them. A recklessness boiled up in him. He had an urge to lose himself in drink, in women, in cards, anything that would take his mind form the trial. Sara waited for him somewhere. He couldn’t face her now, nor could he explain to himself the reason behind his reluctance. Why did the Baltimore Club call to him? Why the massage parlor? The constant thoughts of Angelique?
He watched himself as though from the air. Himself, the man in the street, tall, broad shouldered, toughened by time and by hardship. Beaten.
Not beaten yet, he told himself. All was not lost. The trial would resume tomorrow; the jury would not let themselves be hoodwinked by such a buffoon as Douglas Crenshaw. He still had Sara. He would be married. A wife, children, a ranch, tranquility. It all awaited him.
The barman in the Mexican cantina set before him a glass of tequila and a bowl of chicharrones.
Balum reached into his pocket to pay but the barman held up a hand.
‘Cortesía de la casa.’
Balum accepted, and the barman left without explanation. The first sip stung his throat. It burned, hot and dagger-like in his belly. The feeling of expansion took hold of his head, a lessening of tension. Relief. He took another sip. The darkness of the cantina comforted him. The murmur of Spanish, the smells of freshly made tortillas. He took a chicharrón from the bowl and let the salt mix with the sting of tequila in his mouth.
Out of the darkness a figure rose. A tall man, sombrero in hand. He approached Balum’s table and pulled out a chair, then sat and rested the sombr
ero over his knee.
‘Buenas tardes,’ the man said.
Balum nodded, indifferent. The man sitting across from him, though uninvited, intrigued Balum. He was dressed as a Mexican vaquero, yet physically did not look the part. Too tall, the features of his face wrong. He waited for the man to speak again.
‘Vengo con un consejo,’ he said.
‘I haven’t asked for any advice,’ said Balum.
‘Ya lo sé. Pero se lo voy a dar de toda manera.’
‘Bueno. Dime.’
‘Usted se ha metido con mala gente. Gente que le va a llevar a la ruina.’
‘Qué gente?’
‘Los que asaltan los trenes.’
‘Quiénes?’
‘Los Sanderson.’
Balum leaned back in the chair. He looked hard at the man across the table from him, searching his face, his demeanor. It made no sense.
‘You telling me the Sandersons are train robbers?’
‘That’s exactly what I’m telling you.’
Balum felt his face react to the man’s English. It came out perfectly, without accent, and completely unexpected.
‘What evidence do you have?’ asked Balum.
‘Evidence that would put me in a bad light, were I to reveal it to the law.’
‘Why are you telling me this? Why help me?’
‘I know who you are now. You are the famous Balum, de La Cárcel de Belén. Everyone here knows that now. Many owe you. Who did not have a friend, a father, a son, there in that prison? For me it was my brother. My half-brother, Juventino Costas.
Memories Balum had pushed down for years rose up from the dark crevices of his mind. Tino Costas was among them.
‘What’s your name?’ said Balum.
‘Caesar Costas,’ he said, then stood and placed the sombrero on his head and paused, looking at Balum across the table. ‘Ten cuidado.’
‘Careful of what?’
‘Las cosas que hará uno...por el amor de una mujer.’
He vanished back into the dim. His companions rose, the sound of spurs and leather chaps infused the darkness, and they left through the door. Balum sat with the empty tequila glass, repeating the man’s words in his head.
The things one will do...for the love of a woman.
14
Sleep brought no consolation. He woke in a state of agitation no less draining than the day before. The sources of his vexation were too numerous to know which to concentrate on first.
Sara wanted her name on his bank account. Chester claimed Aston was visiting the jail house, Randolph insisted he saw Saul Farro at the Sanderson residence. The trial was turning on its head. Nelson appeared more innocent every day. The message from Caesar Costas in the cantina last night appeared so preposterous he hardly knew what to think of it.
And the letter.
It sat on the desk, untouched, lurking behind every thought that floated across Balum’s conscience. He leapt from the bed suddenly and snatched it up, then paused, looking at the lettering on the envelope. He replaced it, dressed himself, and took it up again. The trial was not scheduled to begin until noon. He would take a ride. A long ride, out to the foothills, where he could be alone. To sit with a problem, a plug of tobacco in his cheek, with time to study the tangle of woes besetting him; that was what he needed.
He tucked the envelope into his shirt pocket and left his room.
The stares from the townspeople were losing their shock. They followed him out the hotel and down the boardwalks; sideways glances and brief flashes of eyelids stealing peeks as he crossed to the edge of town and past the corral and through the livery doors.
The liveryman’s apprentice, a boy in overalls who should have been at school, walked the length of the stalls scooping grain into the feeding buckets hanging on the gate doors.
‘The old timer ain’t in,’ said the boy when Balum came through the livery doors. ‘He’s done caught ill.’
‘That’s alright. I’m taking the roan out for a ride.’
‘I’d help you get him saddled but I’ve got to be off to the feed store.’
‘You run along,’ said Balum. ‘I’ll saddle him up and be back in the afternoon.’
‘There’s some apples past their day in that barrow yonder,’ the boy motioned to the end of the livery where bales of hay were stacked a dozen feet into the air. ‘Your roan’s got a taste for ‘em. I got to be going now. Good luck with the trial, Mr. Balum.’
Balum’s boots fell silently on the dust of the livery floor after the boy had left. Horses watched him walk the length of the building with their oblong heads protruding out from their stall gates, their great jaws masticating, eyes leveled solid at the stranger. The roan waited in the end stall. He shook his head at Balum’s approach.
The wheelbarrow mentioned by the boy was indeed filled with apples past their prime, rotten and dimpled, flies buzzing in senseless circles over the mass of piled fruit. He took one in his hand and held it out over the gate. The roan curled its lips back and snatched it up as though it were a trick taught and practiced a hundred times over. Balum treated it to another, then waited for the roan to return to the grain.
He watched his horse, enjoying the silence of the livery until it was broken by Sara Sanderson’s voice at the livery doors.
‘There you are,’ she exclaimed. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you dear. What on earth are you doing in the livery?’
‘I thought I’d take a ride. The city’s got me feeling like a bull in a bucking chute.’
‘We were supposed to meet after court yesterday. The bank manager was expecting us. I feel rather foolish now. I prefer to keep my appointments.’
‘Ah, yes,’ he mumbled. He stood beside the stall at the edge of the piled bales of hay, out of the walkway between the two rows of horses. Sara walked towards him, the two lines of horses observing the newcomer in the same way they had followed Balum. He watched her, his eyes unable to avoid the sight of her body wrapped in a thin dress, the neckline creeping down just enough to give a hint of what might lay below. She gave an extra wiggle to her hips, aware of his eyes on her.
‘This is important, Balum,’ she said, turning the corner of the roan’s stall and stopping inches in front of him. Her hands reached out and touched his waistline. ‘Don’t you want to find a place together?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Then you need to add me to your account. It’s how these things are done.’
Her hands moved up his chest, slowly curving over to where his neck met his shoulders.
‘I just thought…’
‘Oh you poor thing,’ she cooed. ‘You’re so tense. This trial has you so stressed.’
She drew closer. The tip of her cleavage rose and fell on her breath, inches below his face. Her body touched his; her thighs against him, her forearms on his chest, her breasts pressed into him. She dug her fingers gently into his neck and shoulders and looked into his eyes.
Balum’s hands found her waist and he bent and kissed her. Her mouth opened immediately, inviting him in, and her tongue slid over his. Balum felt his cock engorge and rise in his trousers. It pressed into her, gently into her belly.
‘Oh,’ she brought a hand to her lips as if something indiscreet had happened and stepped back slightly. The fingers of her hand traced a line down his torso and twisted and cupped the throbbing mass of his crotch. ‘So this is where all your stress is. You poor thing. That trial is so nasty. Let me help you. Then we’ll go to the bank and get this all sorted out.’
Deftly, she unbuttoned his trousers and reached her hand inside while at the same time returning her mouth to his, her lips full and wet, softly pressing into his. Her hand grabbed his exposed shaft and began to stroke the length of it, slowly, her fingers applying pressure. She took one of his hands in hers and brought it to her breast, turning herself over to him.
Balum felt his thoughts vanish. Urgency replaced them. A driving passion, a buildup of weeks of longing. He popped open the
buttons running down the front of her dress and gripped her bare breasts in his hand, squeezing them, bending to suck on the nipples while she tugged at his cock. She knelt suddenly and set her knees in the hay. His cock waved just above her upturned face.
‘Will this make you feel better, honey?’ she asked.
Balum nodded and placed his hand at the back of her head and slid his manhood into her open mouth. She took it, her eyes never leaving his. The sound of moaning, slurping, whimpering, rose up from the livery floor. Her mouth came off his cock and her tongue came out to trace its contours, lick the tip, the shaft, tickle his hanging balls. She pressed his wet dick against her cheek and looked into his eyes.
‘We’re going to be so happy together, dear,’ she whispered while the saliva-covered shaft wetted her cheek. ‘I’m going to take all that stress from you. Then we’ll go to the bank and get all this business sorted out.’
He scarcely heard her. He drew his hips back and plunged his cock back into her mouth, thrusting into the warmth and wetness and losing himself in her moans. She pushed him away suddenly and stood, turned around, and lifted her dress over her hips. Underneath she wore nothing; no bloomers, no undergarments, no leggings. With her hamstrings straight, she bent forward at the waist and touched her hands to the ground in front of her. Her firm round ass rose up towards him, the cheeks spread apart to reveal her pink asshole and the delicate lips of her pussy, glistening with wetness and waiting to be filled.
He took hold of her by the hips and felt his cock slide along her wet vagina, slipping against the warmth of her thighs, until he pressed its tip against the hot tightness of her pussy and thrust himself into her. She gasped out and he rammed his shaft hard and deep into her. The smack of his thighs against the back of hers clapped out in the open livery. His fingers pressed into the firm flesh of her hips, sinking slightly into the skin.
She moaned out as he pounded her from behind. Neither cared of the consequences; they both needed this, each for their own reasons. She reached behind him and cupped his balls in her hand. When she felt them tighten, when his hands clenched ferociously onto her hips, she pulled away from him suddenly. Dropping to her knees she spun around suddenly and took his shaft again in her hand and rose her face to meet his eyes.
For the Love of a Woman Page 9
