Río Chama, page 7
On crawled Jeremiah Cole, a petrified rat, gasping, bleeding, eyes wide.
“Stop it!” Wade kicked him in his face, watched him roll over, grunting, falling still, yet conscious. Next Wade hurried to the door, peered into the darkness, heard the wind scream, waiting, watching.
Nothing.
For once, Britton Wade’s luck hadn’t turned bad. Or so he thought, until he turned around to discover Stew aiming his rifle at the red-headed shadow lying, face down, next to the chestnut.
“Hold it, you damned fool!”
Wade looked up, surprised to find Clint Paden pointing his revolver at Stew’s face.
Stew looked up, his face bitter, the barrel still pressed into that flowing red hair, his finger tight against the trigger.
“It’s a woman,” Paden said.
“Yeah, and the bitch was tryin’ to kill us all,” Stew said.
“Not all of us,” Jeremiah Cole said. “Just me.”
Wade chanced another look outside, holstered his pistol. “Pull that trigger,” he said, “and we’ll all get killed. It’s by God’s own grace no one heard that first shot.” When the long-haired weasel finally relented, cursing under his breath as he shoved the rifle into the saddle scabbard on one of the bay horses, Wade hoisted Jeremiah Cole to his feet, and shoved him toward the chestnut. “We best ride,” Wade said. “Now!”
“Brit’s right.” Paden had holstered his revolver, and unsheathed the Marlin, backing the sorrel out, ducking to look out the door. “All ’em Mexicans must be drunker than Hooter’s goat,” he said. “If they didn’t hear that ruction.”
“The wind,” Wade said, “carried the noise away.” He kept looking at Stew, holding the bay’s reins and saddle horn, but still glaring at the unconscious woman lying in the straw and manure.
Paden was talking to Wade. “Out the gate. To the river. Down the Santa Cruz to the Chama.”
Wade nodded.
“I should slice her throat,” Stew said in an icy whisper.
Paden’s eyes blazed. “She’s out cold, Stew. Now let’s ride.”
“She heard us!” Stew barked back. “Heard where this lunger’s takin’ us. Sure as hell can’t leave her behind to tell ever man-jack in the plaza where we’s headed.”
Silence. Wade watched Paden, waiting for his word, put his hand on the .44’s butt, wondering why everything had turned so sour, so quickly.
In the back of the stable, the dun horse kicked the stall again.
“Tie her over the saddle then,” Paden said urgently. “We’ll bring her with us.”
* * * * *
Dawn broke, clear and cold, as the horses moved wearily upstream in the Río Chama. How they had ever managed to make it this far, Britton Wade figured, could only be called a miracle. The snow had stopped falling shortly after midnight, and a few hours later they could see stars. Northwest of Santa Cruz, the storm hadn’t dumped so much snow, and, although the wind that morning still felt like winter, Wade knew the clear skies would mean a warm sun.
Spring, perhaps, had finally won out, and he thought of something Dickens had written: “Spring is the time of the year, when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.”
They eased out of the river and into a fortress of juniper, sliding, almost falling, from their saddles, to loosen the cinches, and let the horses rest. Wade’s shoulder felt stiff, and he was wet, weary, almost frostbitten, but he moved to the big dun horse, and knelt to untie the shadow’s hands and feet.
She wasn’t a shadow anymore, not in the daylight, not with her red hair hanging almost to the ground. He could see the knot just above her temple, bruised and cut from Stew’s vicious slap with the .22’s barrel, could see her red lips crusted with something she had vomited up sometime during the night. Her face, now pale, was freckled, and, as he helped her off the dun, and watched her collapse onto the glistening snow, he realized that, even covered in filth, even after miles riding like a corpse, she was a beautiful woman, in her twenties, with delicate nose, and eyes like emeralds, only harder than diamonds. She wore a black riding skirt, black boots, a navy blouse.
Wade stood there, staring at her, as she rubbed her head. From the opposite bank, a raven kawed, and he looked away from the woman, studying the country, wondering why he had even tried to pull off this damned fool scheme, then heard Clint Paden’s drawl.
“It ain’t polite, I know, but I reckon I got to ask you your name, ma’am.”
Squatting in front of the redhead, Paden handed her his canteen, and watched her drink. “Not too much,” he warned. “Stew hit you pretty good.”
“A fine gentleman he is,” the woman said, spit some water to her side, and returned the canteen. “Fine gentlemen you all are.”
“Well.” The toes of Paden’s boots dug nervously in the already melting snow.
“You wasn’t exactly lady-like your ownself,” Randy said, and pointed toward the river where Jeremiah Cole knelt, cupping his hands, slaking his thirst, and washing dried blood off his face while Stew stood guard over him with the pump rifle. “You was about to gut our prisoner like a fish.”
She glared at Randy, but he wasn’t even looking at her, then turned her blazing eyes on Clint Paden.
“Ma’am?” Paden said softly. “If I knew what I should call
you . . .”
“Fenella Magauran,” she said. Her accent sounded like County Cavan. “And I aim to kill that man.”
Slowly Paden rose, wiping his face. “What for?”
“What for?” She looked at him sharply. “What for, you say? What do you think, you dumb oaf? Do you think only the Mexicans want that scoundrel to die? Do you think a woman cannot know the power of Roman Cole?” She pointed at the German silver crucifix hanging from her neck. Paden was looking away, embarrassed, but Wade couldn’t turn from the Irish girl. “Father Vasco was my priest, too! And he . . .” She spit at Cole, still at the river. “He murdered him!”
Chapter Nine
Rivulets of water carved furrows in the red earth, weaving through cheap grass and chamisa, moving around rocks, finally pouring into the river, wide here in the flat, open country. By midday, most of the snow had melted, and the blue Chama shimmered with reflected sunlight, so bright it hurt one’s eyes.
Somehow, they had made it past the confluence of the Ojo Caliente, riding in the middle of the Río Chama when they could, on the banks when they couldn’t, sometimes, when the road looked clear, on the trail itself to make better time.
If they could just get past Abiquiu, the next village—the only place of any significance between here and Tierra Amarilla—then make it to the red rock country, they might survive. At least until we hit the deep cañon, Britton Wade thought. Clint Paden had been right back in Santa Cruz. There was a pretty good chance Chama Cañon would kill them.
Paden took the point, with the red-headed Irish girl trotting alongside him on her big dun. Beside Paden rode Jeremiah Cole, head down, wetting his cracked lips, no longer acting like the cock-of-the-walk boy who felt the world owed him something. Randy and Stew brought up the rear on their bay horses. Wade didn’t like the idea of having those two tramps behind him, and kept his right hand near the Merwin & Hulbert, kept listening for the metallic click of a revolver being cocked behind him. It wasn’t good for his nerves.
They had been on the Abiquiu road for three quarters of an hour, trotting, then slowing to a walk, and had not seen one person. Lucky, Wade thought. How long will it hold?
Paden reined the sorrel to a stop, told the girl to hold up, his saddle creaking as he turned, jutting his chin toward crumbling adobe walls near the river, maybe a quarter mile off the road. Dead weeds piled up against a carreta, one of the ox-drawn carts so common in the territory, in front of the old house. The cart looked about as ancient as the adobe.
“We could rest our horses there a spell,” Paden said. “Got a good view of the road.”
Wade’s head bobbed. Rest the horses, rest themselves.
When they reached the abandoned home, Paden helped the girl down, dusted off the remains of a fireplace’s hearth, and suggested that she sit there, out of the wind. He kept busy, loosening the cinches, barking orders, always smiling. Wade wished he still possessed that kind of youthful energy.
Paden ordered Randy to grain the animals, then lead them down to the river, two at a time, to drink. He told Stew that the cottonwood tree near the Chama would be a good place for him and his Colt Lightning rifle, told him to keep a sharp look-out for anything, anyone. He told Wade: “You wouldn’t happen to have some whiskey in that grip of yours, would you, pard? Something to cut the trail dust?”
Rye sounded good.
Wade swung wearily to the ground, and untied the leather thong holding the Gladstone. “Lot of stuff was spilled out,” he said to no one in particular as he headed for a rock near the Irish girl, letting Randy take his buckskin. He sat down, looked inside the grip, and sighed. The laudanum was gone. He rummaged through the books, stopped, pulled one out, stared at it, not comprehending.
“You can preach to us, too,” Paden was saying, “but I’d prefer some whiskey before the sermon.”
Wade opened the Bible, closed it, traced his finger along the cross cut into the leather cover, shook his head, returned the Bible into the Gladstone. A present, he thought, from Father Marcelino. When was the last time I’ve held a Bible?
He found the flask, took a swallow, tossed the container to Paden, and reached back inside the bag, retrieved his shaving kit, and walked to the river where Randy was watering the two bays.
* * * * *
“Every tale I ever heard about Britton Wade says he’s savage as a meat axe,” Paden said. Hat tipped back, he leaned against the adobe, near the Irish girl, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles, smiling that big smile of his, the flask, empty by now, leaning against the rock under Fenella Magauran’s legs. “Yet here he is, a man who wants to shave every day.”
“I like to be clean,” Wade said. He removed his hat, ran his fingers through the hair, looked up and down the trail.
“Shaving won’t keep you clean, mister,” Jeremiah Cole said bitterly.
Randy, having watered and grained all the mounts, laughed. “He sure won’t get clean with what he’s got for shavin’ soap.” He cackled even harder. “You should have seen it, Clint. He ain’t got no shavin’ mug, just a worn old piece of soap he put in his palm, and it’s just a thin wheel. That’s all that’s left. Middle of it’s all gone, used up.” He slapped his thigh with his hat. “I mean to tell you, Clint, most folks I know, they’d toss that morsel away, buy a new one.”
“Wade’s always been a miser.” Paden re-crossed his legs.
“How long y’all knowed one another?” Randy asked.
“Oh, we was acquaintances ten years ago or so, when I was just a green pea.” Looking at Wade now. “I heard about what you did in Chloride, pard, after I went up to Santa Fe for two years.”
“So did I,” Wade said.
Paden yawned, stretched, slowly climbed to his feet. “You and me are a lot alike,” he told Wade.
“Not really,” Wade said.
“Sure we are. Even our last names are similar, Paden and Wade. You could hang ’em names on a shingle if we was lawyers or a troupe of Thespians, and bring in customers by the score.” Paden faced Fenella. “Ma’am, it’s like this. Brit Wade, he got to wear a badge. Clint Paden, he’s . . . that would be me, ma’am . . . he’s had badges chasing him most of his life. But we’re both clay-eaters, just poor white trash from the South. My mama always told me that I was born on the wrong side of the tracks to amount to nothing. Now, Britton Wade, he was born on the same side of the tracks as me, or so I suspect, only he amounted to something. Got his name in the newspapers, got wrote up in three or four half-dime novels. Got to be a big man.”
“Not so big.”
Paden grinned harder. “Not now, I guess. Even old Goliath met his better.”
“We should go,” Wade said.
The girl was looking at him. “You,” she said. “You are a lawman?”
“Sometime back,” he said.
She didn’t look away, just stared at him with those green eyes, as if trying to understand him.
Hell, Wade thought, what’s the point? I don’t even understand myself.
“Why do you do this?” she asked.
“I’m bringing him in.” Wade pointed at Jeremiah Cole. “It’s as simple as that.”
She laughed, without humor, shook her head, and rose from her seat on the stones. “I do not believe you. I believe you are taking this fiend to Senator Cole. For money!” She spit out the last words with a vindictiveness that almost matched her hatred for Roman Cole.
He heard Cole’s fingers snap, saw him pointing at the girl. “I know you. Now I remember. You used to clerk in Jimmy Gage’s mercantile in Chama.”
“That is right. And I remember you, Jeremiah Cole.”
“Well, I never hurt you. Don’t think I ever spoke to you much. You ain’t got no call to come trying to cut out my heart.”
“Don’t I?” She spun quickly, facing Wade again. “How much is Senator Cole paying you?”
“Ma’am,” Clint Paden answered, “was we working for Mister Cole, don’t you figure we’d be having an easier go at things? Don’t you reckon the rich senator would be hurrying his boy south to Mexico, maybe to some hide-out in Texas? Don’t it stand to reason that we wouldn’t be bringing the boy to that rope awaiting him at T.A.? We’re men seeking justice, ain’t that right, Brit?”
“You are not just men,” she said, still bitter, “no matter how many badges he has worn.”
I cannot deny that, Wade thought.
“And you’re a just woman?” Randy said, mocking her. “You tryin’ to stab him to death?” He shook his head. “Clint, I wish we had rode on to Las Vegas to join the fight in Cuba. Everybody in the territory has gone plumb loco.”
“Let’s ride,” Wade repeated.
“Two hundred dollars!” the woman shouted, and everyone inside the adobe walls stared at her. “Two hundred dollars,” she said again. “That is the reward Father Amado and Father Virgilio will pay.”
“How’s that?” Stew had rejoined them, holding the rifle against his right leg.
“I told you to keep a look-out!” Paden barked.
“Yeah.” Stew stared at the woman, but only briefly, then looked at his boots. “You did. What about that reward?”
“Two hundred dollars,” Fenella repeated. “If you are not riding for Senator Cole, if you truly want justice, the money can be yours. Perhaps you knew of this already. The priests in the valley took up a collection. I gave them three dollars and seventeen cents myself. Two hundred dollars, to be paid when that man”—she spit at Jeremiah—“when he is delivered to the devil.”
Jeremiah Cole’s laugh broke the brief silence. “My pa would pay two thousand. Or more.” Then his eyes became slivers, and he stood in Wade’s face. “You,” he said, remembering. “You so all high and mighty, saying you’re working for the law, justice, all that bullshit. You told me you were working for those two padres. You’re bringing me in for money!”
Clint Paden was laughing now, walking to the picketed sorrel. “I do declare, Brit, you was holding out on me. Two hundred dollars. A reward. And you told us that you was doing this job for nothing. Let’s ride boys. Into the river for a few miles. We can camp tonight in the rocks. And figure out how we’re gonna split up that reward those good padres have offered us.”
* * * * *
Chalk-colored boulders lined the cañon floor, its walls stretching into the darkening sky, as they made camp that evening. The ground remained wet, the wind cooling as the sun dipped lower in the horizon. No coffee. No fire. Another cold camp. But they had made it this far. There was that.
“That was mighty sly of you, pard,” Clint Paden said, dropping his saddle beside Wade, who was lying on the ground as Randy and Stew picketed the horses, and Jeremiah Cole and Fenella sat across from each other, leaning on their saddles, as well. “Not telling me about that two hundred dollars.”
“It’s only a hundred and fifty,” Wade said. He wished they could have a fire that night, heat up some of his coffee. The cañon would likely prevent anyone seeing a small fire, but someone might smell it. Better to play it safe.
“How’s that?”
Wade cleared his throat, then coughed into a handkerchief. “Father Amado advanced me fifty.” Had to. I was dead broke. He shook his head at the memory, opened up the cotton rag, and shook his head again at the flecks of blood.
“I guess if I didn’t like you so much, Brit, I’d say that was your tough luck, that you’d already collected your part of the reward, and me and the boys would divvy up the rest. But I like you, pard. We’ll split the rest of the money four ways. Might be harder to cipher that way, but that’s what we’ll do. It’s only fair. After all, it was you who got the Cole kid out of the jail.”
“I appreciate that.” Paden didn’t catch his sarcasm.
“’Course,” Paden said, staring across their camp. “There is the other thing. What the boy said. That his pa would pay two thousand dollars to see his son alive.”
“Yeah.” Waiting for Paden to make his play.
Instead, Clint Paden shook his head, still looking at the Irish girl. “On the other hand, a woman like that, well, she could almost make you want to do right by her.”
Wade sighed. “You ever tried to do right by yourself, Clint?”
Paden’s head turned, and he looked at Wade for a long time, puzzled, wondering, maybe thinking. He started to answer, stopped, and found Fenella again. “She’s a fair sight, don’t you think?”
“More than fair.”
“Strong, too. Like to have cut Cole’s throat.” He chuckled slightly. “That would have been something. Having a girl stop us cold.” Sighing heavily, he stretched out his long legs. “Randy’s right. The whole territory has turned crazy. You ever seen anything like it?”
Wade’s head shook.
