Before she stepped onto the foot rail, she looked to the top of the coach, catching sight of the safety man seated on the driving board. He was cradling a double-barreled shotgun and leisurely smoking. He glanced at her, stubbed out the live ashes of the cheroot against the side of the coach, and gave her a mournful nod.
Once the coach got under way, the dust from the road followed them for miles. Lucinda pictured the German arriving in town after dark, his horse lathered almost to glue. He would look for her, eventually finding his way to the hotel. There he would bribe, or bully, his way into the room she had rented. Seeing the nightgown and comb, he would sit on the bed, hopefully for most of the night, waiting for her to return, his fists clenching and unclenching. She had cast off the heavy travel clothes as well, leaving them scattered about the room; the yellow boots she had reluctantly pushed beneath the bed.
Chapter 2
The horse Nate rode out of Franklin on that morning had had a man’s weight across his back only a few dozen times. It was a three-year-old gelding, narrow in the body and neck, with an ill-defined head that would have signaled to the unknowing, or the inexperienced, that the animal himself was as bland as his conformation. In fact, he had been given up for the sausage cart, viewed as unreliable and intractable by the rangers of the westernmost outpost.
Nate knew from the beginning that he had been assigned the horse as a joke: a test for the newly sworn-in Texas state policeman from Oklahoma. The gelding had been yanked at, whipped, blindfolded, and hobbled in an attempt to break him to the saddle, to the extent that even a tightening belly cinch sent the animal into frenzied bucking.
When Nate saw the horse—head down, ears plowed backward, feet splayed—the first thing he did was remove the saddle, blanket, and bit, leaving only a lead rope around his neck. Nate stood by the gelding the remainder of the afternoon, occasionally feeding him a bit of grain and molasses, never looking directly at him, only following close as the animal grazed. The rangers, hoping for a show, had quickly gotten bored after the first hour and wandered away to see to their own affairs.
The second morning, Nate hand-fed the horse at regular intervals, touching him rhythmically in sweeping motions across his back and haunches, even removing his shirt to flag it gently across the horse’s line of vision. By midday there was not even a ripple of muscle across the gelding’s chest when another ranger passed by.
On the third day, Nate spent hours slipping the rope off and on the gelding’s head and neck, snaking it across his withers, even draping it around his belly, tightening it only enough for the horse to feel the pressure. He fed the horse more grain and molasses, and the animal began to follow him around like a dog.
On the morning of the fourth day, everyone in the entire ranger company who was not out on raid duty collected to watch Nate putting the blanket and saddle on the crazy gelding, who yielded quietly, even when the cinch was tightened. The onlookers braced expectantly for action when Nate put his foot in the stirrup, but he only leaned his weight across the saddle and then stepped down again. He repeated the action for half an hour before he fully seated himself. He touched his heels to the gelding, and the horse bucked forward but soon stopped and stood still, only his ears twitching. Nate got off and on the saddle a few more times, led him around by the bridle, got back on, and tapped the horse into an easy canter away from the post. He was gone for twenty minutes, and when he returned, the gelding was lathered but calm. The rangers who had stood around making bets that the horse would come back riderless gave him backhanded compliments and pressed him for information on how to subdue their own uncooperative and clod-footed mounts.
When the captain, a veteran ranger by the name of Drake, asked him how he was able to break the horse, Nate shrugged and told him that working with a horse was like raising up a child. “You build on trust and little tries,” he said.
At dawn on the fifth day, he was given the gelding, which would replace his own worn mount, and a commission to ride westward an hour distant to find two rangers in the field, Captain George Deerling and Tom Goddard, and bring them back to Franklin. A killer named William McGill had reappeared in Houston after some absence from Texas, to murderous effect. A man that Captain Deerling, for personal reasons—reasons Captain Drake did not elaborate on—had been chasing for years.
Nate rode west for more than two hours until he saw the irregular bands of gray smoke from a campfire and came upon three men seated together in a companionable arrangement, drinking coffee. If he hadn’t seen the leg irons on the man sitting in the middle, he wouldn’t have known which one was a prisoner and which ones were rangers.
The only one smiling was the ankle-bound man, his hair poking up in unruly spikes, as though he’d slept with a blanket pulled tight over his head. The rangers must have heard Nate coming from a long way off, otherwise they would have had their Colts drawn and cocked.
He legged himself down from his horse and walked to the fire.
“You George Deerling?” he asked. He addressed himself to the closer ranger, but the man shook his head and pointed to his older companion.
From a middling distance, the two rangers looked remarkably alike, even beyond the sameness of their dress. Hatless, they both wore top boots over home-sewn denim and shirts dyed an approximate indigo. The younger ranger was black-haired with a black mustache, the edges of which drooped into his coffee cup, requiring him to make a backhanded sweep after every sip. The one he had pointed to was an older man, silver-haired with a gray mustache, also of impressive width.
Their hair was cropped serviceably short, and every bit of exposed skin on the two rangers—wrists, necks, faces—and even the color of the eyes seemed sun-blasted to a dunnish brown. The man sitting between them was fully dressed in the same hard-ridden way but was bootless, owing to the bulk of the leg irons.
Nate shifted his good leg so he could stand more comfortably. His hip hurt something awful, but of a certainty he didn’t want to appear weak-limbed on his first field day.
He said, “I’m Nathaniel Cannon. Nate.” There was no nod of assent or motion of recognition. He added, “Sent by Captain Drake.” The last word lilted upwards and came out sounding, to his ears, like a question.
The older ranger said, “I’m George Deerling. My partner”—he motioned sideways with his head—“Tom Goddard. Dr. Tom.”
The man in the middle said, “And I’m the goddamn queen of the desert.” He yukked and grinned, showing all his teeth, top and bottom.
Deerling, in a sweeping motion, brought his gun out of its holster and applied the butt of it sharply to the prisoner’s head. Through the yowling and protestations of foul play, Deerling said, “This mannerless yahoo is Maynard Collie.”
Dr. Tom set his cup down and motioned for Nate to sit. “You here to help us bring old Maynard in?”
Even the voices of the two rangers were the same, Nate thought. The top notes slightly breathy and clipped, like air exhaled through short, fibrous reeds.
Dr. Tom smiled. “You already missed the fun. Maynard shot his own horse out from under himself trying to ride and fire at us at the same time.”
Nate sat and fingered the dirt as if testing it. “You know, you’re awfully close to Las Cruces. We don’t have power of arrest in New Mexico.” He kept his voice neutral but looked pointedly at Collie.
Dr. Tom looked across the top of the prisoner, who was still rubbing his head with both hands, with an amused turn of his lips. “George, did you know we was in New Mexico?”
Deerling drained the dregs of his cup. “Still looks like Texas to me.” He held the cup out to Nate. “You want coffee?”
Nate nodded, grateful for the offer, and the cup was half filled with the last of the coffee remaining in the small tin pot. He sat and watched the rangers begin to break camp and wondered how long he should sit drinking coffee before he broke the news to Deerling.
Collie looked at Nate and asked, “They ready to hang me?” He grinned again but sounded plai
ntive.
“Shut up, Maynard.” Dr. Tom cheerfully nudged him with a boot. “Make yourself useful and cover over the fire.”
Nate finished the coffee in the cup and, wiping it against his pants leg, stood. “Captain Deerling?”
Deerling, kneeling and packing his supply satchel, looked up.
“We’ve gotten word about McGill.” A pause. “He was in Houston a week ago.”
“And…?” Deerling stood, leaving his pack on the ground.
“And he’s gone. Left the town with Crenshaw and Purdy followin’ after.”
“What’s the butcher’s bill?” Dr. Tom asked.
“They took a mail stage and a dock warehouse. Didn’t get a whole lot but killed two people in the process. Both gut-shot.”
Maynard shook his head sadly.
“While all this was goin’ on, seems they were hiding in some settler’s house, just north of Houston.”
Dr. Tom asked, “Were any left alive?”
“One. The woman lived. But he killed the husband and two children.”
“Goddamn kid killers,” Maynard said. He scratched at the skin under the leg irons.
“She crawled more than a mile to a neighbor, bleedin’ the whole way. Said they were told all along they’d be left alive. And when it came time to leave, McGill just started shooting.”
Deerling asked, “Where’d they head?”
Nate shrugged. “The woman said they’d talked about riding to Harrisburg.”
“Harrisburg? What’s in Harrisburg?” Dr. Tom looked to Deerling.
“There’s the railroad to Richmond on the Brazos, for one. San Jacinto? Galveston, maybe?”
“And then on to New Orleans.” Dr. Tom whistled. “They get to New Orleans and we’ll never see ’em again.”
“If it were me, I’d go to Mexico.” Maynard settled on a hopeful look.
“If it was you, you’d know when to shut it.” Dr. Tom hunkered down and removed a key from his vest to unlock the leg irons.
“Tom.” Deerling held up a restraining hand. He turned again to Nate. “Did the woman say anything more?”
“She said they were after a stash of Confederate gold some dirt farmer uncovered in the Texas bayous. Or some such nonsense. She was mostly out of her head, I think.”
Deerling frowned. “What’s the disposition on Collie here, once we get him to Franklin?”
“We’re just waitin’ for the judge to show up,” Nate said. “We got the jury. It could be a week more. Ten days, maybe. Drake knew you’d want to follow after McGill. After you give testimony at the trial, he said. I’ve got my commission. I can ride with you as long as you need me.”
Deerling looked at Dr. Tom for a good while. He said, “We wait that long, we’ll lose ’em for sure.”
Dr. Tom considered for a moment. “We may have lost them already, George. What do we do with Maynard here?”
“You could let me go,” Maynard offered.
“He’s gonna be hanged regardless.” Deerling talked over Maynard’s head, as though he’d wandered off.
Dr. Tom pursed his lips. “You could bring a whole hornet’s nest of trouble on us if he comes in lookin’ like he was not a willing participant.”
“What in the hell…what’re you talkin’ about?” Maynard asked. “I’m sittin’ right here, goddamn it.”
Deerling looked at Maynard contemplatively. “We bring him in alive, and we’re committed to a turn of events outside our control.”
Dr. Tom nodded.
“I got a big bite, fifty-caliber, in my saddlebag,” Deerling said, looking towards his horse, a large bay cropping grass nearby.
“No, no, no, no…I’m not willin’,” Maynard shouted. “And if you bring me in with a rope-collar burn, or, or a hole in the back of my skull”—he pointed to Nate—“he’s gonna know it and have to tell God and everyone what you done.”
Nate looked from Deerling to Dr. Tom, feeling as though he had dropped off into a deep sleep and had just awakened to find himself in the middle of the conversation.
“I get a trial, right?” Maynard looked around, then settled his eyes back on Nate. “Right?”
Dr. Tom said, “Maynard, you just had one.” He tapped Nate on the arm and, grabbing his hat, said, “Come on.”
Nate took a defensive posture. Pointing to Deerling, who was digging through his saddlebag, he said, “He’s not going to shoot the prisoner, is he?”
“No,” said Dr. Tom. “He’s not going to shoot him.” He looped his arm around Nate’s shoulder in a persistent but fatherly manner, prompting him to move away. “He’s just goin’ to talk to him a bit.”
After a few paces, Nate shrugged off the arm.
Dr. Tom rocked back a bit on his heels and squinted up at the younger man in a calculating way. Nate looked over the ranger’s shoulder, trying to keep the prisoner in his sights. Maynard was throwing fistfuls of dirt, pebbles, anything at hand, towards Deerling, who had hunkered down at a safe distance and was holding up what looked to be a large shotgun shell.
“You have family?” Dr. Tom asked.
“Yes. A wife and daughter.” Nate could hear Deerling speaking in a mostly one-sided discourse with Maynard, the exact words indistinct, but the tone reasonable, comforting even.
“What are their names?”
“Their names?” Nate looked uncomprehending at this line of questioning. “Beth and Mattie, not that it applies to any goddamn thing goin’ on here.”
Maynard had stopped throwing things and had taken up pleading.
“You love your family, your wife and daughter?”
“Hell, yes, I love my family.” Nate backed away a few steps. His confusion was beginning to make him angry. “What the hell’s goin’ on?”
Dr. Tom gestured with a thumb over his shoulder. “Maynard here kills women. All of ’em whores. But, still, each of ’em started out as someone’s sister. Or daughter.” He gave Nate a few moments to absorb this fact, and then tapped him on the arm again. “Come on. Let’s walk a bit.”
Nate turned one last time towards Maynard, who was now holding his head in his hands, listening—or not—to Deerling, who talked on and on. He remembered Maynard’s hands holding his coffee cup, the nails bitten down to the quick and stained with something dark. Maybe dirt, maybe not.
He followed Dr. Tom away from the camp and to a slight drop-off by a dried-up streambed, where they stood at the edge, their backs to the sun. Dr. Tom took out a pocket rag and swiped it around his neck. He gestured towards Nate’s legs. “You break one a while back?”
“No.” Nate crossed his arms, easing his weight from one foot to another. “Horse fell on me. Broke my hip.”
“Hurts, don’t it?” Dr. Tom smiled. He tugged on his mustache thoughtfully and said, “Old Maynard’s got a choice to make, something the poor bastard’s probably never had before in his life.”
“You think he didn’t have a choice, killin’ those women?”
“Well, no. Your average killer, yes. He’s got a choice. But Maynard”—Dr. Tom tapped his head—“Maynard is beset by the demon of by-God-have-to-do-it-and-don’t-know-why. You find ’em every once in a while. I don’t think he ever liked the killing part one bit.” He dragged the rag around his neck again and hunkered down. To Nate, it looked like he was simply enjoying the view.
Nate stood studying his hands for a bit, considering, and then dismissing, the idea that this was all some elaborately staged rite of passage, like pulling the short hairs on the last boy out of his bedroll. He decided it was not. “Goddamn it,” he muttered.
Dr. Tom said, sympathizing, “A hell of a first day.”
“What’s his choice?” Nate finally asked, lifting his chin back toward the camp.
“The big bite. Or something else, something less pleasant.”
Nate thought about the shell Deerling had shown Maynard and about the impact of the blast that a 70-grain cartridge used in a .50-caliber shotgun would make. What the “something less pleasant” w
ould be, he couldn’t imagine. “You said the prisoner wasn’t going to be shot.”
“He’s not.” Dr. Tom spat between his teeth and watched some buzzards circling high up.
Regardless, Nate strained his ears for some sounds of a struggle back at the camp, bracing himself for the concussion of a shotgun fired off. He wondered what the hell he would say to Drake when it came time to bring what was left of Maynard back into town. He had only just been sworn in a week ago and didn’t think his word on the matter would be taken for much.
“I guess you never heard of a big bite before?” Dr. Tom asked. “Buffalo hunters on the south plains started carrying ’em a few years back. The hunter empties out a cartridge and fills it with cyanide. If he gets close to being taken by Indians, he nestles it between his teeth and bites down. It’s pretty fast.” Dr. Tom batted at the gnats beginning to swarm around his face. “At least, it’s faster than watching your own tender bits cut off by Kiowa.”
“Is that what’ll happen to him if he refuses to take the cyanide?”
“Oh, I think not,” Dr. Tom said. He stood up stiffly, brushed off the seat of his pants, and straightened his hat, as though a train, long awaited, had just pulled into the station. “The big bite’s a hell of a lot faster than doin’ the hurdy-gurdy at the end of a rope. And anyway, if Maynard cooperates, George will make sure Maynard’s kin get the reward that would otherwise go to some latecomer. I think he’ll see reason.”
“What’s it goin’ to look like when we bring him back to town?”
“I imagine it’ll look like what it is.”
“Which is…?”
“Self-inflicted mortality.”
“What about the trial? You think no one’s gonna ask questions?”
Dr. Tom sighed as though Nate had posed a delicate philosophical question. “The honest truth is, no one is gonna give a damn, except maybe the judge if he makes the trip for nothing.” He stood for a while watching Nate shaking his head. “If it makes you feel any better, we could say that you come upon us after Maynard passed on.”