Río Chama, page 8
“I reckon we lost ’em boys in Santa Cruz.”
“Maybe. But there will be others. Dan Augustine. Riders for Roman Cole’s brand. Who knows how manymore.”
Paden wasn’t listening. He was scrambling to his feet, sweeping off his hat, hopelessly love-struck, as Fenella Magauran approached them.
“Do you really believe this piece of filth will hang?” She hooked a long thumb at Cole. Before Paden could reply, she asked again: “Do you really believe you cannot be stopped by Senator Cole?”
“Well, ma’am,” Paden said, “we ain’t been stopped yet.”
“Then you may let me go. I will not harm you anymore.”
Paden scratched the palm of his hand against his pistol’s hammer. “Well,” he drawled.
“Surely, Mister Paden . . .”
“Call me, Clint, ma’am.”
Those Irish eyes danced. “Clint. Surely, Clint, you have heard the saying that a woman has the right to change her mind.” She tossed back her head, red hair bouncing, and laughed. “I do not have to kill him. He is not worth it. He is cursed, anyway. The entire Cole clan is cursed.”
“Shut up!” Cole said.
“Cursed to hang,” she said, eyes still dancing, turning to mock the doomed Jeremiah Cole.
“Shut up!”
“Like his brother. Like his . . .”
Roaring in anger, Jeremiah Cole sprang to his feet, charging. Wade was pushing himself up, drawing the .44, and the girl was screaming, ducking, eyes no longer so bright. From the picket line, Randy yelled something, but Wade couldn’t hear it.
Paden dived, tackling Cole, pinning him easily on the ground, and, when she saw he no longer remained a threat, the Magauran girl chuckled again. “Cursed to hang,” she said. “To die from the rope. As they all must die. As many have already . . .”
“Shut up.” This time, Britton Wade spoke the sharp words, holstering his revolver, staring into her hardened eyes, staring until she looked away.
On his feet, catching his breath, Clint Paden hurried to the girl. “Well, Miss Fenella, I reckon I’d enjoy your company. So if it’s all the same to you, ma’am, you can just ride along with us. Dangersome country, ma’am. Not fit for a woman to be riding through alone.”
Trying to speak easily, Wade figured, but Paden’s voice was as strained as his smile. Knowing what the girl had been doing, riling Cole, hoping Paden or Wade would kill him. Getting no response from the woman, Paden put his hat back on, and walked to the horses, shrieking orders at Randy and Stew.
Fenella Magauran’s eyes glared again at Britton Wade before she went back to her saddle and sat, while Jeremiah Cole scrambled into the rocks, away from the girl, closer to Wade.
“Damn her to hell,” he said. “Damn that curse! Damn . . .” His voice cracked. “Damn my family.”
Back at the church, during one of his long-winded history lessons, Father Marcelino had mentioned the bruja’s curse of the Cole family. Wade hadn’t given it much thought, more folklore and superstition as common across New Mexico as coyotes, and he considered asking the prisoner more about it now, but decided against it. Superstition or not, it had riled Jeremiah Cole. Or something had. Maybe it had just been the Irish girl.
“Five thousand dollars,” Cole said urgently. “Even ten.”
Wade looked at him.
“Ten thousand. That’s more than those bean-eaters around Chama could ever raise in twenty lifetimes. Ten thousand dollars. Just get me to my pa.”
With a slight laugh, Wade opened the Gladstone. He had a little light left, just enough for . . . He found the Bible, put it back, withdrew Dumas.
“You don’t know what it’s like, Wade.” Cole’s voice kept faltering, still upset by the girl’s comments, combined with his approaching execution date. “I been rotting in that dungeon in Santa Fe for months while my lawyers were appealing my case. You don’t know what it’s like, Wade, to have a death sentence hanging over you.”
“Son,” Wade said, “I’ve had a death sentence hanging over me for nigh sixteen years.” He opened The Man in the Iron Mask.
Chapter Ten
“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meanness are usually committed for the sake of the people who we most despise.”
Roman Cole reread the sentence, dog-eared the page, and slowly closed Great Expectations, having already forgotten what he had read. Too noisy. One reason he preferred the solitude of his ranch headquarters, where he could see the Brazos Cliffs from the window of his library, where he could enjoy the quiet, the loneliness. One reason he hated Chama.
He tossed the book on the dresser of his hotel room, on the second floor of the High Mountains Hotel, just above the saloon. A poor location for peace and quiet, but it was the biggest room in the hotel, the biggest room in Chama. The floor seemed to shudder from the shouts and laughter below, the clinking of glass, the thudding of balls on the billiard table, the cacophony of forty-rod whiskey and thirty-a-month cowhands. Might as well join them, Roman Cole decided, grabbed his Stetson, and left his room.
Only he didn’t make it to the saloon.
He saw her leap from the davenport by the window overlooking Front Street, dark hair pinned in a bun, a pencil tucked above her ear, making a beeline for him. How long had she been waiting in the lobby? Probably since the news had spread throughout the gossipy little town that Senator Roman Cole had checked in. That woman galled him something fierce.
“A word with you, Senator?” Rachel Morgan said, removing the pencil and producing a notebook.
Ignoring her, he strode across the parlor and into the saloon, found an empty corner along the long mahogany bar, and barked an order for a beer to the nearest bartender, then searched his coat pocket for a cigar.
“I won’t be denied an interview, Senator.”
She, a damned woman, had followed him into the saloon. The woman had sand, but no pride. He bit off the end of his cigar and spit, not caring that he missed the spittoon. Women in saloons. Women editing newspapers. Women demanding suffrage. The world had gone to hell.
“Make it bourbon,” he told the bartender. He looked around the saloon, found a few friendly faces, spotted another man near the taps, the little solicitor who had argued long and hard, and won, for a change of venue for Jeremiah’s trial, said a fair trial could never happen in Río Arriba County. For both sides, he had argued, due to the reputation of the defendant’s father and due to the most heinous crime on record for which the defendant is accused. He had gotten the trial moved to San Miguel County, to Las Vegas, started the whole damned ball rolling downhill. Cole struck a match, looking over his cigar, the smoke, glaring straight at the firebrand of a lawyer, until the cad gulped down whatever he was drinking, and, pulling down his bowler tight, headed outside.
“Your son is scheduled to be executed one week from today,” the newspaper editor said.
“I read that in your newspaper.” The barkeep gave him a glass. Cole killed it, motioned for another.
“Is Britton Wade working for you?”
Insolent bitch. He sent a blue stream of smoke in her face, hoping she would cough, turn green, but she didn’t even blink, damn her. Hearing the whiskey refilling his tumbler, he reached for it, stopped, decided to answer her question. “Britton Wade has never drawn time from me. I don’t know the man. Only by reputation. And that reputation smells like a rotting coyote.”
“Some say the same of your reputation, Senator.”
“Some . . .” He held his tongue. Had been about to remind her how people had been killed for words like those, that he had killed men himself, and if not for the fact that she wore a skirt . . .
“Do you believe your son will hang?”
“I believe my son to be innocent.” Two men nearest him nodded. Pandering to him, the mealy-mouthed, gutless bastards. His eyes blazed until the two looked away, one of them moving to a table in the saloon’s darkest recess.
“There’s a story, among many of the original families to the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, that, if Jeremiah Cole hangs, it will continue to fulfill a prophecy. That all of the Coles are cursed to die from the rope.”
He lifted the glass.
“One of your sons hanged by his own hand. They say the other put the noose around his neck when he killed Father Vasco.”
He drank. The bartender had left the bottle. He refilled his glass.
“Is it true that your late wife also hanged herself?”
Another man, standing to his left, turned on his heels. “Miss Morgan,” he said. “No offense, ma’am, I don’t mean to be eavesdropping, but it’s bad manners to mention a woman in a saloon. Missus Cole deserves some respect.” He tipped his hat, lifted his wine glass.
To Cole’s surprise, that seemed to fluster the shameless hussy. She shuffled her feet nervously, looked at her notes, wet her lips.
Cole sipped the bourbon.
“You done?” he asked.
He should have kept quiet. Her resolve returned. Again she looked straight into his eyes, unwavering. “Sheriff Murphey purchased the timbers for the gallows from the Cole Lumber Company.”
The saloon had turned silent. Some drunk looked up from a table, slammed his empty glass on the felt cloth, asked what in hell was going on, stood up, wobbled toward the player piano, said something about needing music. A tall railroad worker stopped him, told him to sit down and shut up.
“I have many businesses,” Cole told her. He looked at the man who had come to his late wife’s defense. “Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”
James Gage’s head barely moved, and he finished his wine.
“You mean to profit from your own son’s death?”
He took another sip, placed the tumbler in her hand, and smiled through his cigar. “Jeremiah isn’t dead, yet.”
Tossing the cigar into the spittoon, he left, pushing angrily through the batwing doors, across the lobby, and out the front door onto the boardwalk, looking across the muddy street, and down the hill at the railroad depot and tracks, over to the water tank, back to the telegraph office next to Gage’s Mercantile. That’s why he had come to town. Be closer to the news. He saw the telegrapher, busy jotting something down. For him? Maybe not. He looked southward. The Jicarilla Saloon sat a few doors down, but he’d have to cross that bog to reach it. He didn’t want to look over his shoulder, troubled that he might find that newspaper editor waiting to ambush him again. He wished somebody in Chama had the sense to lay some planks down across the thick soup. Wished they had purchased those planks from the Cole Lumber Company.
Hell, yes, he had sold the county lumber for the gallows. Same as he had provided timbers for the gallows in ’96 when Perfecto Padilla and Robert Torres had been executed. Hell, yes, it had been about profit, but he had never figured those gallows would have been used for Jeremiah. Wouldn’t be worried about that now, if not for Britton Wade.
He turned, decided to find some escape in the Jicarilla, had just sunk his right boot into four inches of bog, when someone called out his name. It was the baldheaded, rail-thin telegrapher, waving a slip of paper in his bony left hand, slogging through the street, reaching the boardwalk, leaving a trail of mud on the pine planks.
Roman Cole pulled his muddy boot back onto the wood.
“This come for you, Senator.” The relic handed him the paper, his head bobbed once, and he was hurrying back across the street.
Cole swallowed, unfolded the paper, steeled himself for the worst.
STONE ON TRAIL STOP
SHOULD HAVE J SAFE STOP
WILL BRING HEAD YOU DESIRE STOP
NEAR ABIQUIU STOP
It had been signed Archie Preston. He let out a long breath, hadn’t realized he had even been too scared to breathe, but now Roman Cole smiled as he folded the paper, and tucked it inside his coat pocket. Turning slightly, he spotted the newspaper editor in the hotel lobby, talking to mercantile owner James Gage, furiously taking notes.
Good old Archie. He didn’t know how his foreman had managed it. Probably ordered a string of riders to the nearest telegraph office to send the wire. Archie Preston deserved a bonus, would get one, once Jeremiah was safe.
Cole started down the boardwalk, away from the Jicarilla, away from the High Mountains Hotel, toward the livery, where his stallion was boarded. No longer would he wait for news, good or bad, wait to be ambushed by that pesky newspaper woman, forced to drink in watering holes alongside pettifogging lawyers, poor businessmen, and a bunch of Judas Iscariots. And damned Mexican fables.
“Louise died of cholera,” he said bitterly to the lady ink-slinger’s back. “And William was no son of mine.”
* * * * *
North of Abiquiu, in a box cañon a half mile from the river, Wade held a firm hand over the buckskin’s mouth, listening as a dozen riders loped on the road above. Stew knelt nearby, having ignored Wade’s demands to keep the horses quiet. Instead, the gunman aimed the Lightning rifle at the road. Paden kept one hand on his sorrel, the other held the Bulldog revolver under Jeremiah Cole’s throat.
The sound of hoofs died away, and Britton Wade filled his lungs with air, quickly swung into the saddle.
“Close.” Paden holstered the revolver, and mounted the sorrel.
“We should have turned him over to those riders,” Stew said after he angrily shoved the rifle into the scabbard. “Cole men, likely. Could have collected the senator’s reward, and not that change offered by them starvin’ poor priests.”
“Stew, Stew, Stew.” Paden shook his head. “Those gents would have just taken Jeremiah from us. So as they could get a bonus from the boy’s daddy. No, the only way we could collect anything from Senator Cole would be to turn young Jeremiah over to the senator, in person, face to face, mano a mano.” Grinning, he turned to Wade and Fenella. “That is to say, if that was our intentions, which it ain’t. We’re deputies, working for Deputy United States Marshal Britton Wade, and we’ve given our word to bring Jeremiah Cole to jail, or the closest church to Chama.”
Wade kicked the buckskin into a walk, easing out of the cañon, then nudged the horse into a trot, making for the river, away from the road.
* * * * *
It had been going like that most of the day. Yesterday, they had seen no one, but today they had spent more time hiding from riders than riding for Chama Cañon. Skirting a wide loop around Abiquiu, picking up the river again, looking over their shoulders at the flat-topped mountain known as El Pedernal looking down on them.
“River’s rising,” Paden said, reining up at the Chama’s banks.
“Yeah.” Still, Wade kicked the buckskin, splashing into the water, cold, deep, swift, heard the others follow him.
The buckskin shook, urinated, and moved on, into the woods. Wade led the group another mile, near the river, although they were deep enough in the trees now that they couldn’t see the road. The problem was the forest didn’t go on forever, and soon they’d have no more cover.
He reined in, letting the horses rest, letting his own nerves settle down, and he let out a small laugh. There it was again. That fear. “It’s funny,” he said, not meaning to speak his thoughts aloud.
A voice sounded to his left.
“Buenas tardes.”
His hand started for the revolver, stopped. Behind him, Stew cursed, drew his own pistol, but Wade barked: “Hold it!”
A little man in duck trousers and a muslin shirt stood just a few rods away, axe over his shoulder, sweat-stained sombrero in one hand at his waist, worn boots on his feet. The woodcutter had appeared out of nowhere, but he didn’t seem a threat. Not yet.
Wade nodded a greeting at the Mexican, listening as Paden told Stew: “Gunshot would bring that posse back, Stew. Let’s see what the fella wants.”
After a gracious bow at Fenella, the Mexican leaned the axe against a tree, and pulled his big hat back over his sweaty black hair. Behind him, in a small clearing, waited a patient donkey loaded with firewood.
“I am Carlito Martinez.”
“You speak English,” Randy said stupidly.
The woodcutter kept his eyes on Britton Wade. “Un poco.”
“We’re . . .” Wade laughed again, stopped his lie before he could think of one. The man knew who they were. “I’m Britton Wade.”
“Sí. A pleasure, señor.”
Wade introduced the others, stopping at Jeremiah Cole. “You know this man.”
“I have never seen him before this moment, but, sí, I know who he is. Everyone knows who he is.” Carlito Martinez spoke English more than just a little. “Everyone knows who you are, Señor Wade.”
“And you don’t want to kill Cole?” Paden shook his head. “That’s a first. Every Mexican in the territory wants this boy dead.”
“Not all.” The donkey brayed. The woodcutter ignored him. “Not all are cursed by the madness afflicting our people. Afflicting your people, too. Two nights ago, men camped at the place my grandmother once called El Muro de Muchas Voces. Today, they come to Abiquiu. They ride up and down the trails, across the mesas, through the desert. To kill you.”
Wade pushed back his hat, waiting for more, but the woodcutter had finished, except for an adiós.
Carlito Martinez picked up the axe, returned to the donkey, grabbed the rope, and, clucking his tongue, eased the pack animal through the trees, heading southeast toward Abiquiu.
Again, Stew began easing the rifle from its scabbard.
“Let him go,” Paden said. “He’s harmless.”
“He’s seen us.”
Paden kicked the sorrel, took the point. “First man we met in a ’coon’s age who don’t want to kill us on sight, and Stew here wants to shoot him in the back. Let’s ride, boys.”
Chapter Eleven
“Do you know where that there . . . what is it that woodcutter called the place?” Paden asked.
Riding alongside Britton Wade, Paden looked comfortable in the saddle, whereas Wade kept shifting his weight, trying to find a position, any position, that didn’t hurt so damned much.
“El Muro de Muchas Voces,” Wade answered, his voice tired.
“What’s that mean?”
“Maybe. But there will be others. Dan Augustine. Riders for Roman Cole’s brand. Who knows how manymore.”
Paden wasn’t listening. He was scrambling to his feet, sweeping off his hat, hopelessly love-struck, as Fenella Magauran approached them.
“Do you really believe this piece of filth will hang?” She hooked a long thumb at Cole. Before Paden could reply, she asked again: “Do you really believe you cannot be stopped by Senator Cole?”
“Well, ma’am,” Paden said, “we ain’t been stopped yet.”
“Then you may let me go. I will not harm you anymore.”
Paden scratched the palm of his hand against his pistol’s hammer. “Well,” he drawled.
“Surely, Mister Paden . . .”
“Call me, Clint, ma’am.”
Those Irish eyes danced. “Clint. Surely, Clint, you have heard the saying that a woman has the right to change her mind.” She tossed back her head, red hair bouncing, and laughed. “I do not have to kill him. He is not worth it. He is cursed, anyway. The entire Cole clan is cursed.”
“Shut up!” Cole said.
“Cursed to hang,” she said, eyes still dancing, turning to mock the doomed Jeremiah Cole.
“Shut up!”
“Like his brother. Like his . . .”
Roaring in anger, Jeremiah Cole sprang to his feet, charging. Wade was pushing himself up, drawing the .44, and the girl was screaming, ducking, eyes no longer so bright. From the picket line, Randy yelled something, but Wade couldn’t hear it.
Paden dived, tackling Cole, pinning him easily on the ground, and, when she saw he no longer remained a threat, the Magauran girl chuckled again. “Cursed to hang,” she said. “To die from the rope. As they all must die. As many have already . . .”
“Shut up.” This time, Britton Wade spoke the sharp words, holstering his revolver, staring into her hardened eyes, staring until she looked away.
On his feet, catching his breath, Clint Paden hurried to the girl. “Well, Miss Fenella, I reckon I’d enjoy your company. So if it’s all the same to you, ma’am, you can just ride along with us. Dangersome country, ma’am. Not fit for a woman to be riding through alone.”
Trying to speak easily, Wade figured, but Paden’s voice was as strained as his smile. Knowing what the girl had been doing, riling Cole, hoping Paden or Wade would kill him. Getting no response from the woman, Paden put his hat back on, and walked to the horses, shrieking orders at Randy and Stew.
Fenella Magauran’s eyes glared again at Britton Wade before she went back to her saddle and sat, while Jeremiah Cole scrambled into the rocks, away from the girl, closer to Wade.
“Damn her to hell,” he said. “Damn that curse! Damn . . .” His voice cracked. “Damn my family.”
Back at the church, during one of his long-winded history lessons, Father Marcelino had mentioned the bruja’s curse of the Cole family. Wade hadn’t given it much thought, more folklore and superstition as common across New Mexico as coyotes, and he considered asking the prisoner more about it now, but decided against it. Superstition or not, it had riled Jeremiah Cole. Or something had. Maybe it had just been the Irish girl.
“Five thousand dollars,” Cole said urgently. “Even ten.”
Wade looked at him.
“Ten thousand. That’s more than those bean-eaters around Chama could ever raise in twenty lifetimes. Ten thousand dollars. Just get me to my pa.”
With a slight laugh, Wade opened the Gladstone. He had a little light left, just enough for . . . He found the Bible, put it back, withdrew Dumas.
“You don’t know what it’s like, Wade.” Cole’s voice kept faltering, still upset by the girl’s comments, combined with his approaching execution date. “I been rotting in that dungeon in Santa Fe for months while my lawyers were appealing my case. You don’t know what it’s like, Wade, to have a death sentence hanging over you.”
“Son,” Wade said, “I’ve had a death sentence hanging over me for nigh sixteen years.” He opened The Man in the Iron Mask.
Chapter Ten
“So, throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meanness are usually committed for the sake of the people who we most despise.”
Roman Cole reread the sentence, dog-eared the page, and slowly closed Great Expectations, having already forgotten what he had read. Too noisy. One reason he preferred the solitude of his ranch headquarters, where he could see the Brazos Cliffs from the window of his library, where he could enjoy the quiet, the loneliness. One reason he hated Chama.
He tossed the book on the dresser of his hotel room, on the second floor of the High Mountains Hotel, just above the saloon. A poor location for peace and quiet, but it was the biggest room in the hotel, the biggest room in Chama. The floor seemed to shudder from the shouts and laughter below, the clinking of glass, the thudding of balls on the billiard table, the cacophony of forty-rod whiskey and thirty-a-month cowhands. Might as well join them, Roman Cole decided, grabbed his Stetson, and left his room.
Only he didn’t make it to the saloon.
He saw her leap from the davenport by the window overlooking Front Street, dark hair pinned in a bun, a pencil tucked above her ear, making a beeline for him. How long had she been waiting in the lobby? Probably since the news had spread throughout the gossipy little town that Senator Roman Cole had checked in. That woman galled him something fierce.
“A word with you, Senator?” Rachel Morgan said, removing the pencil and producing a notebook.
Ignoring her, he strode across the parlor and into the saloon, found an empty corner along the long mahogany bar, and barked an order for a beer to the nearest bartender, then searched his coat pocket for a cigar.
“I won’t be denied an interview, Senator.”
She, a damned woman, had followed him into the saloon. The woman had sand, but no pride. He bit off the end of his cigar and spit, not caring that he missed the spittoon. Women in saloons. Women editing newspapers. Women demanding suffrage. The world had gone to hell.
“Make it bourbon,” he told the bartender. He looked around the saloon, found a few friendly faces, spotted another man near the taps, the little solicitor who had argued long and hard, and won, for a change of venue for Jeremiah’s trial, said a fair trial could never happen in Río Arriba County. For both sides, he had argued, due to the reputation of the defendant’s father and due to the most heinous crime on record for which the defendant is accused. He had gotten the trial moved to San Miguel County, to Las Vegas, started the whole damned ball rolling downhill. Cole struck a match, looking over his cigar, the smoke, glaring straight at the firebrand of a lawyer, until the cad gulped down whatever he was drinking, and, pulling down his bowler tight, headed outside.
“Your son is scheduled to be executed one week from today,” the newspaper editor said.
“I read that in your newspaper.” The barkeep gave him a glass. Cole killed it, motioned for another.
“Is Britton Wade working for you?”
Insolent bitch. He sent a blue stream of smoke in her face, hoping she would cough, turn green, but she didn’t even blink, damn her. Hearing the whiskey refilling his tumbler, he reached for it, stopped, decided to answer her question. “Britton Wade has never drawn time from me. I don’t know the man. Only by reputation. And that reputation smells like a rotting coyote.”
“Some say the same of your reputation, Senator.”
“Some . . .” He held his tongue. Had been about to remind her how people had been killed for words like those, that he had killed men himself, and if not for the fact that she wore a skirt . . .
“Do you believe your son will hang?”
“I believe my son to be innocent.” Two men nearest him nodded. Pandering to him, the mealy-mouthed, gutless bastards. His eyes blazed until the two looked away, one of them moving to a table in the saloon’s darkest recess.
“There’s a story, among many of the original families to the Tierra Amarilla Land Grant, that, if Jeremiah Cole hangs, it will continue to fulfill a prophecy. That all of the Coles are cursed to die from the rope.”
He lifted the glass.
“One of your sons hanged by his own hand. They say the other put the noose around his neck when he killed Father Vasco.”
He drank. The bartender had left the bottle. He refilled his glass.
“Is it true that your late wife also hanged herself?”
Another man, standing to his left, turned on his heels. “Miss Morgan,” he said. “No offense, ma’am, I don’t mean to be eavesdropping, but it’s bad manners to mention a woman in a saloon. Missus Cole deserves some respect.” He tipped his hat, lifted his wine glass.
To Cole’s surprise, that seemed to fluster the shameless hussy. She shuffled her feet nervously, looked at her notes, wet her lips.
Cole sipped the bourbon.
“You done?” he asked.
He should have kept quiet. Her resolve returned. Again she looked straight into his eyes, unwavering. “Sheriff Murphey purchased the timbers for the gallows from the Cole Lumber Company.”
The saloon had turned silent. Some drunk looked up from a table, slammed his empty glass on the felt cloth, asked what in hell was going on, stood up, wobbled toward the player piano, said something about needing music. A tall railroad worker stopped him, told him to sit down and shut up.
“I have many businesses,” Cole told her. He looked at the man who had come to his late wife’s defense. “Isn’t that right, Jimmy?”
James Gage’s head barely moved, and he finished his wine.
“You mean to profit from your own son’s death?”
He took another sip, placed the tumbler in her hand, and smiled through his cigar. “Jeremiah isn’t dead, yet.”
Tossing the cigar into the spittoon, he left, pushing angrily through the batwing doors, across the lobby, and out the front door onto the boardwalk, looking across the muddy street, and down the hill at the railroad depot and tracks, over to the water tank, back to the telegraph office next to Gage’s Mercantile. That’s why he had come to town. Be closer to the news. He saw the telegrapher, busy jotting something down. For him? Maybe not. He looked southward. The Jicarilla Saloon sat a few doors down, but he’d have to cross that bog to reach it. He didn’t want to look over his shoulder, troubled that he might find that newspaper editor waiting to ambush him again. He wished somebody in Chama had the sense to lay some planks down across the thick soup. Wished they had purchased those planks from the Cole Lumber Company.
Hell, yes, he had sold the county lumber for the gallows. Same as he had provided timbers for the gallows in ’96 when Perfecto Padilla and Robert Torres had been executed. Hell, yes, it had been about profit, but he had never figured those gallows would have been used for Jeremiah. Wouldn’t be worried about that now, if not for Britton Wade.
He turned, decided to find some escape in the Jicarilla, had just sunk his right boot into four inches of bog, when someone called out his name. It was the baldheaded, rail-thin telegrapher, waving a slip of paper in his bony left hand, slogging through the street, reaching the boardwalk, leaving a trail of mud on the pine planks.
Roman Cole pulled his muddy boot back onto the wood.
“This come for you, Senator.” The relic handed him the paper, his head bobbed once, and he was hurrying back across the street.
Cole swallowed, unfolded the paper, steeled himself for the worst.
STONE ON TRAIL STOP
SHOULD HAVE J SAFE STOP
WILL BRING HEAD YOU DESIRE STOP
NEAR ABIQUIU STOP
It had been signed Archie Preston. He let out a long breath, hadn’t realized he had even been too scared to breathe, but now Roman Cole smiled as he folded the paper, and tucked it inside his coat pocket. Turning slightly, he spotted the newspaper editor in the hotel lobby, talking to mercantile owner James Gage, furiously taking notes.
Good old Archie. He didn’t know how his foreman had managed it. Probably ordered a string of riders to the nearest telegraph office to send the wire. Archie Preston deserved a bonus, would get one, once Jeremiah was safe.
Cole started down the boardwalk, away from the Jicarilla, away from the High Mountains Hotel, toward the livery, where his stallion was boarded. No longer would he wait for news, good or bad, wait to be ambushed by that pesky newspaper woman, forced to drink in watering holes alongside pettifogging lawyers, poor businessmen, and a bunch of Judas Iscariots. And damned Mexican fables.
“Louise died of cholera,” he said bitterly to the lady ink-slinger’s back. “And William was no son of mine.”
* * * * *
North of Abiquiu, in a box cañon a half mile from the river, Wade held a firm hand over the buckskin’s mouth, listening as a dozen riders loped on the road above. Stew knelt nearby, having ignored Wade’s demands to keep the horses quiet. Instead, the gunman aimed the Lightning rifle at the road. Paden kept one hand on his sorrel, the other held the Bulldog revolver under Jeremiah Cole’s throat.
The sound of hoofs died away, and Britton Wade filled his lungs with air, quickly swung into the saddle.
“Close.” Paden holstered the revolver, and mounted the sorrel.
“We should have turned him over to those riders,” Stew said after he angrily shoved the rifle into the scabbard. “Cole men, likely. Could have collected the senator’s reward, and not that change offered by them starvin’ poor priests.”
“Stew, Stew, Stew.” Paden shook his head. “Those gents would have just taken Jeremiah from us. So as they could get a bonus from the boy’s daddy. No, the only way we could collect anything from Senator Cole would be to turn young Jeremiah over to the senator, in person, face to face, mano a mano.” Grinning, he turned to Wade and Fenella. “That is to say, if that was our intentions, which it ain’t. We’re deputies, working for Deputy United States Marshal Britton Wade, and we’ve given our word to bring Jeremiah Cole to jail, or the closest church to Chama.”
Wade kicked the buckskin into a walk, easing out of the cañon, then nudged the horse into a trot, making for the river, away from the road.
* * * * *
It had been going like that most of the day. Yesterday, they had seen no one, but today they had spent more time hiding from riders than riding for Chama Cañon. Skirting a wide loop around Abiquiu, picking up the river again, looking over their shoulders at the flat-topped mountain known as El Pedernal looking down on them.
“River’s rising,” Paden said, reining up at the Chama’s banks.
“Yeah.” Still, Wade kicked the buckskin, splashing into the water, cold, deep, swift, heard the others follow him.
The buckskin shook, urinated, and moved on, into the woods. Wade led the group another mile, near the river, although they were deep enough in the trees now that they couldn’t see the road. The problem was the forest didn’t go on forever, and soon they’d have no more cover.
He reined in, letting the horses rest, letting his own nerves settle down, and he let out a small laugh. There it was again. That fear. “It’s funny,” he said, not meaning to speak his thoughts aloud.
A voice sounded to his left.
“Buenas tardes.”
His hand started for the revolver, stopped. Behind him, Stew cursed, drew his own pistol, but Wade barked: “Hold it!”
A little man in duck trousers and a muslin shirt stood just a few rods away, axe over his shoulder, sweat-stained sombrero in one hand at his waist, worn boots on his feet. The woodcutter had appeared out of nowhere, but he didn’t seem a threat. Not yet.
Wade nodded a greeting at the Mexican, listening as Paden told Stew: “Gunshot would bring that posse back, Stew. Let’s see what the fella wants.”
After a gracious bow at Fenella, the Mexican leaned the axe against a tree, and pulled his big hat back over his sweaty black hair. Behind him, in a small clearing, waited a patient donkey loaded with firewood.
“I am Carlito Martinez.”
“You speak English,” Randy said stupidly.
The woodcutter kept his eyes on Britton Wade. “Un poco.”
“We’re . . .” Wade laughed again, stopped his lie before he could think of one. The man knew who they were. “I’m Britton Wade.”
“Sí. A pleasure, señor.”
Wade introduced the others, stopping at Jeremiah Cole. “You know this man.”
“I have never seen him before this moment, but, sí, I know who he is. Everyone knows who he is.” Carlito Martinez spoke English more than just a little. “Everyone knows who you are, Señor Wade.”
“And you don’t want to kill Cole?” Paden shook his head. “That’s a first. Every Mexican in the territory wants this boy dead.”
“Not all.” The donkey brayed. The woodcutter ignored him. “Not all are cursed by the madness afflicting our people. Afflicting your people, too. Two nights ago, men camped at the place my grandmother once called El Muro de Muchas Voces. Today, they come to Abiquiu. They ride up and down the trails, across the mesas, through the desert. To kill you.”
Wade pushed back his hat, waiting for more, but the woodcutter had finished, except for an adiós.
Carlito Martinez picked up the axe, returned to the donkey, grabbed the rope, and, clucking his tongue, eased the pack animal through the trees, heading southeast toward Abiquiu.
Again, Stew began easing the rifle from its scabbard.
“Let him go,” Paden said. “He’s harmless.”
“He’s seen us.”
Paden kicked the sorrel, took the point. “First man we met in a ’coon’s age who don’t want to kill us on sight, and Stew here wants to shoot him in the back. Let’s ride, boys.”
Chapter Eleven
“Do you know where that there . . . what is it that woodcutter called the place?” Paden asked.
Riding alongside Britton Wade, Paden looked comfortable in the saddle, whereas Wade kept shifting his weight, trying to find a position, any position, that didn’t hurt so damned much.
“El Muro de Muchas Voces,” Wade answered, his voice tired.
“What’s that mean?”
