Buckskin Page 5

  “Rest assured, I’ll do something fun and entertaining for your Appaloosa Days, Allie.”

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

  Martha Kathryn turned to Virgil.

  “Did you enjoy the show, Mr. Cole?”

  “Virgil thought it was fantastic,” Allie said. “Didn’t you, Virgil?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you like the theater, Marshal Cole?”

  “Sure,” Virgil said.

  “He told me walking over here how much he liked the dancing cow,” Allie said.

  Martha Kathryn laughed.

  “And the spewing whale,” Virgil said.

  “Yes, those two are crowd pleasers,” she said. “Well, again, thank you for coming.”

  I felt her rub her foot on my leg under the table. Then she smiled. It was a seductive smile and her eyes were speaking way more than the words she was putting together.

  “Thank you,” she said, “and please, come again.”

  10

  Later that night, after he’d had his way with Becky, the kid got on his pony and resumed his journey north. He rode most of the night and into the early-morning hours, putting as much distance as he could between him and everything in his wake. He camped off the road in a thicket near a brook and slept for the better part of the morning before he saddled up and continued.

  He topped a hill to see a wagon coming his way, and behind them he could see a large town in the far distance.

  When the wagon neared, he could see it was a family: a mother, a father, and a boy sitting between them. The boy was a dark-haired kid with golden-colored skin just like him. As they got closer, he could see the boy also had blue eyes, just like his.

  “Howdy, folks,” the kid said as he slowed up.

  The wagon also slowed in a cloud of dust as the father pulled the mules to a stop.

  “Hello,” he said with a nod and a smile.

  The mother and the shaggy-haired son were smiling, too. The kid thought they sure looked like a happy family.

  “Mind telling what town that is back there?”

  The father turned looking behind them.

  “That’s Saqui.”

  “Saqui? That sounds Indian.”

  “’Spose maybe it is.”

  The kid nudged his pony closer.

  “Not that many Indians around these days.”

  The father nodded.

  “No, not like it used to be.”

  “Don’t know that’s not a bad thing,” the kid said with a grin.

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “Looks like you’re pulling up stakes?”

  “We are.”

  “What’s the matter with Saqui?”

  “Nothing wrong with it,” he said.

  “Just moving on?” the kid said.

  “We are.”

  “I know the feeling, I feel the same way, staying in one place too long ain’t good, things just start closing in on you.”

  “We have family south, be better for the boy and the one on the way.”

  “Well, good for you. How old are you, boy?”

  The boy turned his face up to his dad.

  “Go on, tell him.”

  “I’m nine.”

  “You are a fine-looking young boy for nine years old.”

  “What do you say?” the father said to his son.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Heck, I’m not a lot older myself.”

  “How old are you?”

  “Well, it’s hard to say.”

  “You don’t know how old you are?” the boy said.

  “No, you see, I’m not real sure when my birthday is, to tell you the truth.”

  “You don’t know your birthday?”

  “No, but I reckon I’m about nineteen or twenty.”

  “I can’t wait to be that old.”

  The kid laughed.

  “Know what I was doing when I was nine?”

  “What?” the boy said.

  “I was already working.”

  “You were?”

  “Yep.”

  “Doing what?”

  “I was skinning animals.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “What kind of animals?”

  “All kinds. I skinned mostly beaver and deer, but I also skinned elk and some bear, too.”

  The father smiled to his wife, then nodded to the kid.

  “Well, we best be moving on,” he said.

  “Hold on one minute,” the kid said.

  He moved his pony a bit closer.

  “You sure are a nice-looking family.”

  The husband glanced at his wife, then mustered a smile.

  “Thank you.”

  “I got something for you.”

  The kid smiled real wide.

  “Well, for your wife.”

  The kid turned in his saddle to retrieve something from his saddlebags.

  “Here you go.”

  “Oh, no, I couldn’t,” the mother said.

  “No, here, please, it’s yours.”

  He leaned out and handed her the red scarf.

  She hesitated.

  “Please, it’s yours. A good-luck keepsake for your travels, your new beginnings.”

  She glanced to her husband.

  He nodded and she took the scarf.

  “It belonged to my grandmother.”

  Then he tipped his sombrero.

  “Have a nice journey.”

  11

  The long night of sweating and tossing and turning exhausted me. The whole night I thought about Martha Kathryn. I don’t think that I had slept more than an hour at a time, and I was appreciative when the sun finally showed up. It gave me an excuse to get up, get my ass out of bed, and get the day started.

  I dressed and went to the barn to work with a pair of horses I’d recently bought, a dam and her filly.

  They were both anxious to get out. I let the filly out first. She ran around the corral, kicking up dirt and tossing her head. She waited for her mother’s release. They were both light in color and tall, with dark manes and tails. They settled with feed. And after I worked with each of them for a good half-hour, I put them up and walked to the sheriff’s office.

  After last year’s murder of Sheriff Chastain, Appaloosa’s lawlessness had been at a low for a long stretch. And as a result, the city aldermen were yet to fill Chastain’s position. The main reason for the delay was the simple fact that there was a seasoned interim lawman, Lloyd Somerset, who had offered his help until a sheriff got elected.

  Lloyd was a retired Texas Ranger who moved to Appaloosa to be close to his daughter and grandkids. Word was, in his day Lloyd was a feared and revered lawman. Even in his older age, Lloyd gave off the impression he was somebody you might not want to cross. Nowadays, though, he was more of a jailer than a peacekeeper. But he was available, and all the deputies seemed to like and respect him. They enjoyed his stories about his Texas Ranger days and dealing with the Comanche.

  It was only in the last few weeks that the city officials had even begun making efforts to elect a new sheriff. For the time being, the main man who was dealing with the actual policing duties was Deputy Book. Book was the senior deputy, but he’d yet to see his twenty-fifth birthday. So finding a man with some authority and experience was high on the Aldermen’s agenda.

  When I entered, Lloyd was drinking coffee with Book.

  “Morning, Everett,” they said in tandem.

  “Fellas.”

  “I was telling young Book here about the time I brought in the Chiricahua prophet warrior princess Lozen.”

  “Victorio’s sister?” I said.

  “Yep. Pretty as a cactus flow
er. Stronger than most of the men warriors and could ride like a goddamn Comanche. She escaped the first night. Turned out one of them greenhorns who was supposed to be in charge of watching her thought he might get a little piece off her. But it turned out she got a little piece off him. The whole top-half piece of his red hair is what the fuck she took, along with the skin that his red hair was attached to.”

  I poured myself a cup, and before I could sit, James McCormick, the younger of the two McCormick brothers, entered. He was taller than his older brother, with thick, dark hair and a chiseled face. We could tell before he opened his mouth that he was angry.

  “Something has to be done,” he said.

  “About?” I said.

  “Another one of our hands has turned up missing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “If you don’t do something we will have to retaliate,” he said. “We can’t just sit back and let those bastards pick our men off one by one. Won’t stand for it.”

  “Just hold on,” I said. “How do you know he’s missing? What happened?”

  “Just like the other hand we lost, he just did not show up.”

  “When?”

  “He was supposed to show to work yesterday.”

  “Maybe he’s off on a bender,” Lloyd said. “Or shacked up with one of the gals on the north end?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Lloyd leaned back in his chair.

  “Maybe he was throwed,” he said.

  James shook his head.

  “Not this fella.”

  “What’s his name?” I said.

  “Hastings, Mel Hastings.”

  “Melvin Hastings?” Book said.

  James nodded.

  “Know him?” I said.

  “I do,” Book said. “Known him for a good while. He’s a cowhand by trade. Last fella I could think of to get thrown off his horse and end up in a ditch.”

  “Know where he lives?”

  Book shook his head.

  “No.”

  James shook his head, too.

  “I don’t, either,” he said. “He’d not worked with us too long. Don’t know much about him other than he was a capable and hardworking young man.”

  “Let us look into this.”

  He nodded.

  “My brother was the one who hired the men to protect us from this sort of thing, and I don’t think he was wrong in doing so. Not now, anyway, but we are respectable businessmen and I want the law to be aware of this and take care of it.”

  “Like I said, let us look into this.”

  He stood there for a second, wondering if there was anything left for him to say. He shook his head, then nodded and left.

  12

  Virgil and I set out to see what we could figure out about the disappearance of Mel Hastings. After some investigation we found one of the other miners who knew Mel. He told us that Mel lived with a young woman in a small boardinghouse near the stock corrals by the railway tracks.

  Following up, we later learned from the caretaker of the place that the name of the woman Mel was living with was Belle. She was a rush weaver, working in a small chair factory on the river. And we rode out to visit with her.

  Her boss, a big bald fellow with muttonchops, led us through the factory to where a line of workers stood weaving chair seats. He pointed to a pleasant-looking young woman, with a round figure and face.

  “That is Belle,” he said. “The one on the end.”

  “Much appreciate,” I said. “We won’t be long.”

  The big man nodded then left us to talk to Belle.

  She was focused on her weaving work but smiled when we stepped up.

  “Hi,” she said as she continued to work.

  “Belle?” Virgil said.

  She stopped her weaving and nodded.

  “Yes.”

  Virgil opened his coat a bit, revealing his badge.

  “I’m Marshal Cole. This is Deputy Marshal Hitch.”

  “Yes.”

  “We are looking for Mel Hastings,” Virgil said.

  “What did he do?”

  “Have you seen him?”

  She shook her head.

  “What makes you think he did something?” Virgil said.

  She shrugged.

  “’Cause you’re here.”

  “When did you last see him?” I said.

  Her bottom lip started to quiver.

  “Day before yesterday.”

  “Where was that?”

  “At our room. Where we live. At our boardinghouse.”

  “And you have no idea where he is now?”

  “Might be with her.”

  “Who?”

  “His whore.”

  “And what makes you say that?”

  “Would not be the first time,” she said. “Why, what happened?”

  “He didn’t show up for his job,” I said.

  She blinked and blinked, and then her eyes started to water.

  “Oh, no.”

  “What?” I said.

  “You don’t think . . . You don’t think . . . He told me that one of the other fellas he worked with did not show up at work, was missing or something, and that there was bad blood with the other mining company, and, well . . . do you think, is that what you are thinking, too? Has something happened to Melvin?”

  “We don’t know,” I said. “That is why we are here, we wanted to know what you knew.”

  “All I know is he did not come home from work. I had his supper ready and I never saw him.”

  “I’m sorry to ask,” I said, “but who is this other woman you are talking about? The . . .”

  “The whore?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She told us the name of a woman who also lived in the boardinghouse. The woman that Belle referred to as the whore and suspected Mel had been sleeping with on the side.

  * * *

  • • •

  Belle was not wrong. We found the woman and had a talk with her. She told us she had been seeing Mel some but she had not seen him in a while, nor was she intending to ever see him again.

  When Virgil and I got back to the sheriff’s office, Lloyd was sitting, cleaning a shotgun. It was disassembled, with the pieces spread out in front of him on the desk.

  “There ya’ll are.”

  I leaned my eight-gauge on the desk and nodded to it, indicating that it, too, could use a cleaning.

  “Next?” I said.

  “Do I look like a damn gunsmith?” he said.

  “Matter of fact,” I said.

  “Well, hell,” Lloyd said. “Line ’em up. I got nothing but unlimited time. Or in my old-ass case, I reckon I got nothing but limited time.”

  Virgil grinned as he poured a cup of coffee then turned to face Lloyd.

  “So?” Lloyd said. “Anything?”

  “Enough to know the missing fella is damn sure not to be found,” I said. “Not yet, anyway.”

  “Hard to figure with so many fucking people crawling in and out of the woodwork around this place,” Lloyd said. “Surely some poor sonofabitch would have some idea about him and that other fella’s whereabouts, whether they’re dead or alive?”

  “You would think,” I said.

  13

  Lloyd finished putting the shotgun together, then got up and lumbered around the desk. He was stretching his back as he moved.

  “Getting too damn old to sit,” he said. “And too old to move.”

  Lloyd turned where he was standing by the edge of the desk when a big, red-bearded man with a naturally surly disposition strutted in the door, followed by two other men.

  “What can I do for you?” Lloyd said.

  Virgil turned from the stove to face the
three men standing just inside the door.

  “Who’s in charge around here?”

  “Charge of what?” Lloyd said.

  “Who’s the sheriff?”

  “For the time being, that’d be me.”

  “I’m Edward Hodge. I work for the McCormick Brothers Mining Company.”

  “Good for you,” Lloyd said. “Good for you.”

  Hodge turned slightly and nodded to the two men standing behind him.

  “This is R. W. Gibbs and this is Hugh Kane. They, too, work for the McCormick Brothers Mining outfit.”

  “Well, good for you, too,” Lloyd said. “What can I do for you employed fellas?”

  Hodge leveled his eyes at me, and then Virgil.

  “This is Marshal Virgil Cole,” Lloyd said. “And this is Deputy Marshal Everett Hitch, of the United States law enforcement variety. It appears we are all employed here.”

  Virgil took a sip of coffee, then said, “You fellas need something?”

  “We are here to help.”

  “Help with what?”

  “Arrest or kill them hands who work for the Baptiste Mining outfit,” he said.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Virgil said.

  “For what they’ve done.”

  “What have they done?”

  “Took two miners,” he said. “Of course.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Hodge sneered.

  “Who else would have done it?”

  “Do you have proof?”

  “It’s obvious,” he said. “What they are doing. Taking out the workers.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Virgil said.

  Hodge squinted. It was clear he didn’t appreciate Virgil’s question.

  “Can’t say I know it as a fact.”

  “Well, there you have it,” Virgil said.

  “Have what?”

  “Nothing to be done,” Virgil said. “Can’t go after people that you don’t know for a fact have committed a crime that you think they have committed.”

  “Well,” Hodge said. “All right, then. Let it be known that we come to you to offer help. You don’t want it, fine. We’ll take care of matters as we see fit.”