Río Chama, page 12
“Don’t be a fool, sonny. Pitch that shotgun into the river.”
The gun roared again. Not at Randy, but at Stew, who was clawing for his revolver.
“I’ve never shot a man before. That’s the only reason you’re still alive, but my next bullet kills one of you fool bastards. Which one’ll it be?”
She spotted them now, two men, standing on the opposite bank, atop a cliff that rose steadily, layered with granite and red boulders, sprinkled with some trees at the top, maybe forty feet above the river. The two men book-ended a dead piñon, its branches stretching into the sky like a spider web, both of the men holding rifles. The older one, tall, lean, wore a graying beard with no mustache, tails of his canvas range coat flapping in the wind, shapeless hat pulled low. Near him, now kneeling, was a younger cowboy, in shotgun chaps and a bib-front shirt, rifle stock pressed tightly against his shoulder, aiming straight at Randy. His thick brown mustache drooped over his tight lips like a dead snake.
Cursing, Stew moved his hand away from the revolver, and fell back on the bank. Something splashed behind her. Fenella knew it was Randy’s shotgun.
“Now the six-shooter,” the older man said.
Another splash. Randy’s big revolver.
“And you,” the man said, keeping his rifle pointed at Stew, “you lift yourself back up, and you just ease that pistol, toss it over your dead horse. Just forget about that rifle. It won’t do you no good. That’s right. Easy. Nice lad.”
Stew started to push out from underneath the dead horse.
“No. I like you where you are.”
“It hurts like hell!”
“So does a bullet in your gut.”
Stew dropped back down, silent, fuming.
“Archie!” Jeremiah Cole’s voice startled Fenella as he shot to his feet, smiling, raising his bound hands, putting Paden’s hat back on his head. “Tom! By grab, it’s great to see y’all!”
“It’s good to see you, kid. Where are the other two men who took you? Where’s Britton Wade?”
Cole shook his head. “Haven’t seen them since they cut out. I’d hoped y’all had killed them.”
“Didn’t work out that way. So let’s light a shuck before they show up. Ma’am, are you all right?”
It took a moment to realize the bearded man was talking to her. He had stepped away from the tree, worked his way to the edge of the cliff.
She could only bob her head slightly.
“If you’d ride back around the bend, ma’am, you can ford the river there. We’ll take you back to Abiquiu.”
“The hell with her!” Cole shouted. “She’s with them. She wants me dead.”
“Shut up, Jeremiah. I ain’t leaving no woman behind. Not in this country. Pick up that pistol by that dead horse.”
Cole lifted his hands, revealing the rawhide binds.
“You.” The one named Archie swung his rifle back toward Randy. “I see that knife. You cut him loose, but you be real gentle, you hear?”
Laughing, Jeremiah Cole started back toward Randy, shaking his head, talking as much as Clint Paden would, but Fenella wasn’t listening. She kicked her dun, let it take a few steps away from Randy, all the while watching the two Triangle C men on the bluff, watching, but not really understanding, wondering why the younger one had quickly swung his rifle around, not really believing as the Winchester roared, knowing she would never forget the look on Archie’s face as the bullet slammed through his body, blood erupting from his chest like a volcano, the rifle clanging on the rocks at his feet as he pitched over, and dropped into the roiling river.
Her horse danced, confused, then she knew what was happening as the young cowhand with the big mustache levered the rifle, hurried a few steps, aimed quickly, and fired.
Fired at Jeremiah Cole!
Screaming, Cole dived behind a boulder. A bullet spanged off the rock. Her ears rang. Another splash. It was Randy, diving into the river. His horse, squealing, took off downstream, and again the dun wanted to follow. The Winchester above her roared. She tightened her grip on the reins. Urged the horse back, knew the cowboy named Tom didn’t care about her, wouldn’t hurt her. She posed no threat.
Stew moved quickly, pushed against the saddle, dragged his leg from underneath the bay. A bullet dug into the sand near him, and he forgot about the pump rifle in the scabbard, crawled behind the horse, and cowered there. Randy was out of the river, hugging the bank, wondering what was happening.
The rifle boomed. Three times. Maybe four.
“Damn it, Tom!” Jeremiah Cole’s voice. “This ain’t right!”
Another shot, which ricocheted off the boulder. Tom moved downstream, working the lever. He fired again.
“Tom! Jesus, Tom! You got no . . .”
Tom didn’t speak, so focused he was on killing Jeremiah Cole. But why? She’d never seen him before, not at church, and, if he had come into Gage’s Mercantile, she couldn’t remember him.
The Winchester clicked. Empty.
Silently he thumbed five or six cartridges out of his shell belt, and fed his rifle.
“Tom!”
Tom jacked another round into the Winchester, brought it up, sighted down the barrel.
“Tom!”
She could see Jeremiah Cole pressing himself into the boulder, his face ashen. A bullet clipped the top of the boulder, showered Cole’s hair with dirt and pebbles.
“Tom! For the love of God, man!”
Another shot. Jeremiah Cole tried to sink lower.
“I’d never sell you down the river!”
The rifle roared. She smelled the sulphur of hell. Her horse pawed, still wanting to run. She kept the reins tight. Randy and Stew lay still, watching, shocked.
“Tom!”
He cocked the rifle again, took another step, trying to find a likely spot, started to walk, then ran back upstream. Stopped. Smiled.
Too late, Jeremiah Cole realized what was happening, and pushed himself up, saw Tom, the rifle aimed at him. He pushed himself away from the boulder, fell onto his rear, tried to back away. Crying now. Begging for his life.
“Tom! Don’t do it, Tom! Please. We’re . . .”
Another shot, but this one came somewhere from the yellow hills behind her. Tom spun around as the bullet clipped a tree behind him. He looked. Aimed. His Winchester drowned out the shot that killed him. He staggered back, swallowed, dropped the rifle into the dirt, and sank slowly to his knees.
“Hell.”
It was the only word she ever heard the man named Tom speak.
Then, he toppled onto his side, his right arm dangling over the cliff. His hat rolled down the slope, held there for a moment, then a gust of wind lifted it over the edge, and it dropped into the river, swept downstream.
Hoofs sounded, and the buckskin loped toward them. Fenella let out a breath, swung off the dun, confused, looked into the hills again, and found Clint Paden mounting the chestnut, shoving his big rifle into the scabbard, hurrying to catch up with Britton Wade. Movement brought her out of her trance. Stew was up, grabbing his rifle, and Randy was fishing for his pistol and shotgun. Jeremiah Cole started to run, stopped, knew he’d never make it, and slowly walked to the edge of the river. He looked up at Tom’s body.
“Damn your soul to hell, Tom Oliver,” he said. “I didn’t testify at the trial that you were with me that day. And I wasn’t going to speak your name, or none of the others, on the gallows. If I ever got there. You didn’t have to do this, damn you. You . . .” His voice cracked, and he quickly turned away, hurried down the bank, desperately searching the river.
She found him first, the older man, dead. The current had swept him into a nest of boulders at the river’s bend, pressed him there, kept him there, pinned. Jeremiah Cole looked back as Britton Wade stopped the buckskin, and dropped from the saddle.
“We can’t leave him like this. Please don’t leave Archie like that.” Staring at the old man’s body again, Jeremiah Cole sank to his knees, shaking his head, bawling like a newborn. “We can’t . . .”
Fenella loathed herself for it. Fingering her crucifix, she bowed her head, wondering why, how she could ever feel sympathy for a rambunctious, cocksure, evil kid like Jeremiah Cole.
Chapter Fifteen
Wade reached them first, his shouts stopping Jeremiah Cole’s tears.
“Everyone all right?”
Uncertain, Fenella nodded before Stew roared: “That sumbitch killed my horse!”
Wade turned in the saddle, saw that Paden had caught up the sorrel Cole had been riding. Letting out a breath, he looked downstream.
“My horse run off,” Randy said, pointing past the farthest bend.
“I’ll see if I can’t fetch her.” Wade kicked the buckskin, yelling back as he loped down the bank, “Find their horses! Likely up on that bluff!”
Muttering an oath, Randy waded through the calmest part of the river, the deepest part reaching just over his waist, and shouted back at Stew: “Come on, man, lend a hand!”
By then, Paden had ridden up, handing Fenella the reins to the sorrel without thinking, then plunging the chestnut into the river, shaking a loop into his lariat, somehow managing to rope Archie’s boots and drag the body to the shore.
“Thank you,” Jeremiah Cole said softly, sniffed, and knelt to close the dead man’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Archie, sorry that you had to die for my pa.”
They had no shovel to dig a grave, so Paden, Fenella, and Jeremiah began piling stones over the body. A sudden, loud splash caused all three to look up. On the cliff top, Stew, laughing, bent out of sight to pick up Tom Oliver’s Winchester while the current took Oliver’s body past the rocks in the bend, and on downstream, eventually pulling him under the surface.
“That’s despicable,” Fenella said.
“So was Tom killing Archie like he done.” Jeremiah Cole went back to searching for stones. They were still at it when Stew and Randy returned, coming down the rise and crossing the river, now riding Triangle C mounts—Stew on a zebra dun, Randy on a roan.
Pounding hoofs announced Wade’s return, but he pulled no horse behind him. “Couldn’t find the bay,” he said. “We need to . . .” The words died as he watched the burial, and slowly he dismounted, removing the battered hat from his head.
“That sumbitch”—Stew pointed at the corpse’s face—“shot my horse dead.”
“They had us cold,” Randy interrupted. “Nothin’ we could do. Must have ridden past our camp last night, got ahead of us, and waited for us to ride into their trap.”
“Then the other one blew his pard’s heart out,” Stew said, “started poppin’ away at Cole here.”
Still mounted, wiping his wet Greener with his bandanna, Randy sniggered: “Reckon he wanted that reward for hisself.”
“That wasn’t it.” Cole covered the wet, bearded face of Archie Preston with a bandanna, and placed a rock gently over it.
“No?” Stew asked. “He wanted you dead, certain sure.”
Another rock covered the body, and Cole climbed off his knees. He had done most of the work, bound hands never stopping him. First he glared at Stew, but quickly turned to Fenella, staring hard.
“You wanted me dead. Everyone wants me dead. Because of Vasco. Everyone thinks that would be fair. Fair. Hell, I wasn’t alone at that church, and everybody in the valley knows that. There were five men, including me. Even that damned witness said as much at the trial. Five men. But I’m the only one who was put on trial. I’m the only one who’s looking at a rope around my neck. Is that justice? Nobody’s even tried to find the others. Well, one of them’s floating down the river now.”
“Was he with you?” Fenella pointed at the grave.
“No. Archie had no part in that priest’s death. Archie’s only fault was he picked the wrong brand to ride for. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Fenella stared at the grave while the others mounted. She bowed her head, crossed herself, and swung into her saddle. The last to mount was Britton Wade, who looked at the grave for what seemed an eternity, not blinking, just staring, hat by his side.
“Brit.” Paden’s voice. “We don’t know how many others might be coming up that river. Best light out.”
Nothing.
“Brit.”
He nodded. Putting on his hat, he turned to the buckskin, grabbing the horn, then looked back at the final resting place of Archie Preston. He seemed to start to make the Sign of the Cross, but stopped, and was on the horse, kicking the buckskin into a trot, leading them into the widening cañon.
* * * * *
They made camp in a clearing on an island a few miles up the Chama, surrounded by juniper and brush, exhausted, the clouding skies matching their own moods.
Now they sat hunched around a small fire, coffee brewing, on a sandy island, weary, wondering, hiding like rats in a land whose vastness spoke of loneliness, as the wind blew furiously and the temperature dropped swiftly.
“I’ll take my hat back, kid.” Clint Paden snatched it off Jeremiah Cole’s head. “You shouldn’t keep things that you borrowed. And my shirt. Would’ve taken it back yonder, but it didn’t seem the polite thing to do, what with us burying your pal, and all.” He unbuttoned the scratchy prison woolen, which he tossed in a ball at Cole’s feet. “This thing stinks like a slaughterhouse. You ought to take a bath in the morn. No sense in letting all this water go to waste.”
He was trying to be funny, but failing.
“Hey.” Paden snapped his fingers. “Now I got two folks here who owe me their lives. I saved Brit’s hide at The Wall of Many Voices. And I stopped that waddie from sending Jeremiah Cole’s soul to hell before its time.”
Paden grabbed his shirt, pulled it over his head, jammed on his hat, and tried to think of some other joke, but couldn’t. Walking away, favoring his right leg, he sat near a dead tree, and sighed, shoulders suddenly slouched, the smile replaced by a worn look.
Suddenly Britton Wade doubled over, coughing into his cupped hands, and, shivering. Fenella made her way to the stricken gunman.
“I’m all right,” he said weakly.
She knelt, placed the back of her hand on his forehead. “You’re feverish.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Yet he didn’t resist when she helped him up, pulled off his Mackinaw, unbuttoned his shirt, and examined his shoulder.
“When’s the last time you changed this bandage?”
He tried to smile.
Shaking her head, she walked away, into the trees, every eye in camp following her. A few minutes later she returned, holding strips of some undergarment, and she knelt back over Britton Wade.
“Fetch me some hot water,” she barked in that Irish brogue, and, like a child willing to please, Clint Paden limped over to the fire.
* * * * *
He woke to the blaze of lightning, tried to sit up, realized the woman slept next to him. His stirring caused her to sit up, rubbing her eyes. The dark skies lit up with another flash, and he waited for thunder, only it never came.
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” Wade said.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she lied. “How do you feel?” Her hand was on his forehead before he could answer. “Fever’s gone.”
Clint Paden was awake, too, over by the fire, stoking it, adding more pieces of driftwood, his back to them.
“What is it,” the woman asked, “that happened to you in Chloride?”
Wade remembered the conversation with Paden on the trail. She had been listening.
“You don’t have to tell me . . .”
“I know I don’t.” He frowned. Hadn’t meant to speak sharply. Lightning lit up the sky again. He could smell the coming rain. She stared at him.
“I killed two men,” he said.
She turned away, looked at Paden’s silhouette by the fire. “And Paden?” he heard her ask. “Is it true that he beat that man senseless? In Winston?”
“I would have killed him.”
“Because you have mercy.” She was looking at him again.
Now he heard it. Thunder, faint. The wind seemed to have stopped.
“I have no mercy,” he told her.
“Nor did he.” She hooked a thumb toward the fire. “To let a man live. In that condition.”
Wade’s head shook. “He was just a kid. Didn’t know what he was doing.”
“That is what Jeremiah Cole’s lawyer said during the trial in Las Vegas. I read of it in the newspaper.”
“That’s different. And you know it. People die in this country for the wrong choice of words.”
“Or their religion,” she said. “Or the color of their skin.”
He ignored that. “You insult a man, or his kin, you can pay for that with your life. That’s what happened to Clint. Me, too.”
She said: “Father Amado, the priest at Parkview, he preached often that the rebellion in Cuba is what should be going on in New Mexico, that the oppressed should rise up against the tyrants.”
They were having two conversations.
“I shouldn’t have gone after Clint,” Wade said.
“Father Vasco said similar things,” Fenella said. “Perhaps that is why he was murdered by Cole.”
Wade shook his head. “Shouldn’t have arrested him.”
“That is why the people, so peaceful, so God-fearing, in the valley have become so angry.”
“But it was my job. Or I thought it was.”
Her eyes bore through him. “Was it your job to kill those men in Chloride?”
The rain started, softly at first, large, cold drops that hurt like tiny hailstones. He wanted to answer her, although he wasn’t sure he could find the words to explain what had happened to him in Chloride. He felt her trembling, and wanted to put his arm around her, pull her close, warm her, comfort her, kiss her, but she was standing now, walking into the trees, seeking shelter he knew he could never provide.
He heard the hissing of the fire, heard Paden’s soft grumbles as he pulled his Governor’s model hat down tight, and limped toward the picket line to check on the horses.
