Blood on the Verde River (5 page)

“Mrs. Hampton, we just need a place to drop,” Chet argued.

“My name's Bee, and you make yourself at home.”

“Thank you, ma'am. My name's Chet, that's Jesus and he's JD.” Chet pointed at the two young men.

“Nice to meet you all.” To Chet, she added, You have a ranch?”

“Yes, up north of Preskitt, ma'am.”

“Cooler up there, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is usually cooler. We won't be any trouble to you.”

“Put that pack gear in the shop. It rains here every year or so.” Bee Hampton grinned.

They laughed then set out to unload the panniers and put up the packhorses. When the job was complete, they rode back to Tombstone, stabled their horses at the O.K. and split up again.

Chet went to find Marshal White who was in the jail office with his boots parked on the desk. He put them down when Chet walked in the open door.

“Marshal, I'm Chet Byrnes of Preskitt. I want to talk to you about a young lady who disappeared down here.”

The marshal sat up, straightened his vest and bushy mustache then he nodded. “Bonnie Allen.”

“That's who. Anything you know would help me.”

“I wrote her mother I had nothing on her disappearance.”

“Jenn showed me your letter. She thanks you.”

“Take a chair. No need to thank me. I couldn't find out a thing about the girl's disappearance. Sorry I won't be any help Byrnes. Most those girls don't leave forwarding addresses.”

“People say there is big trade in white slavery with Mexico.”

White did spider push-ups with his hands and nodded. “That's a tough business, but no one reports it when it happens. There is only whispering. Few people know where any of the girls are, and no one really cares about them when they're gone except their mothers.”

“Any idea who would know?”

“Not really. But friend, if you found anyone, they would be tough to get to talk. You could probably burn their soles off torturing them and never learn a damn thing. 'Cause they have associates back home who would shoot them if they said a damn word.”

“Sworn to secrecy?”

“Worse than that.” White shook his head to show his stern impression of such men.

“Who heads it?”

“I don't know. That is how secret they are.”

“Old man Clanton?”

The marshal shook his head again. “He ain't no angel, but I don't think he trades in white slavery.”

“If you learn anything, I'm staying out at Ira Hampton's ranch.”

White stood up. “Nice to meet you, Byrnes. I wish you good luck, but be careful. There's cut-throats on this border that are meaner than sidewinder rattlers.”

“I will, thanks. You ever get to Preskitt go by Jenn's Café. She'll feed you good.”

“I'd do that if I ever get up there. Tell her I'm sorry I found out nothing about her daughter's disappearance.”

“Sure, thanks.” Chet offered his hand.

Marshal White shook it. “Watch your back is all I can say.”

“I will.”

Chet left the marshal's office and stopped in a narrow café that produced a fine aroma of the sign's contents S
TEW
30
CENTS A BOWL
. He found a place to sit on a stool in the long bar that went way back in the café full of customers.

“What'll you have?” The short blonde in her mid-twenties wore a tough look as she waited for his answer.

“Stew, I guess. Coffee.”

She wiped the counter in front of him. “You're new here, ain't 'cha?”

“Yes, I live up in Preskitt. Name's Chet.”

“Glad to have you here, Chet. You don't like our stew, don't pay us.”

“That's quite a deal.”

“It's a real deal that we do here.”

“Thanks. A friend of mine,” he lowered his voice, “lost her daughter, Bonnie Allen. Can you help me?”

She looked around as if checking if they could speak, then she whispered sharply, “I get off at seven. Back alley. Talk to you then. Too many ears in here.”

He nodded. Settled back on the stool, he waited for his mug of steaming coffee and the bowl of stew that filled his nose with its rich aroma. In a few minutes, she was back and left him a ticket for thirty cents.

“Pay before you leave.”

He stood up and dug out two quarters from his pocket. “Here. Keep it.”

She looked at the money in her hand and nodded. “Thanks.”

He sat down and lifted the spoon.

“You must be rich,” the guy beside him said.

“No, just figured she could use it.”

“I could have used it to buy two beers.”

Chet nodded, took his first sip of coffee, grimaced, and agreed with the man's comment. But the stew tasted wonderful. “For two beers, what could you tell me?”

“What do you need to know?”

The man beside him had not shaved nor changed clothes in several days. He appeared to be a derelict. But street trash knew more than cleaned-up people about things.

Chet said, “I am looking for a young woman who disappeared awhile ago.”

The man slurped another spoonful of stew and looked at him. “What's she look like?”

Chet put her picture in the case on the counter.

The man picked it up and studied it in the shady light of the café's interior. “Her hair red?”

“Yes. You know where she is?”

He put it down and shoved it toward Chet. “What would you give me to know where she's at?”

“You really know where she is?” This guy could be lying to simply get money out of him.

“I might.”

“What do you want?”

“I could use some money.”

“If I tear two twenty dollar bills in half and you take me to her I'll give you the other halves.”

“That might be hard. To take you there, I mean. I might know where she's at, but hell, there might not be any way to get her out.”

“If I can find her on your directions, I'll pay you a hundred dollars.”

The man whistled. “Where you staying?”

“At the Hampton Ranch west of town.”

“I can find you.”

“How long will it take you to get me the exact location of her?”

The man shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe a week, ten days.”

“What name do you use?”

“Don.”

“I'll be waiting for it, Don.”

“You may have to move fast if I find out.”

Chet gave the man a ten dollar gold piece.

He looked hard at the coin the size of a dime then pocketed it. “See yah.” The man stood and lumbered out the door of the café.

Chet finished his stew and drank a second cup of coffee the waitress had brought him. The place had thinned.

She looked at him hard. “You serious about meeting me tonight?”

“Serious. I'll be there.”

She nodded that she heard him.

He left the café and went on to the Palace Saloon. When he took a place at the sparsely populated bar, he wondered what his cohorts were busy doing. He ordered a beer and sat on a stool to take things in. He'd made two connections, Don, the lost soul and the blond waitress. Could they connect him with Bonnie Allen? Maybe. Or was it simply a plan to squeeze him for more money. Still, someone had to know something about her disappearance.

He talked to an old man who had a rich mine that needed funds to develop. The whiskered guy showed him chunks of raw silver from the mine.

“I guess mine development is expensive,” Chet said to the man who called himself Sam Yooter.

“But you could make millions on this one.”

Chet agreed, but had no wish to get into the mining business.

Yooter soon moved on to another prospect. The bartender came by and told Chet about a lovely girl he knew was available at that time of day for a special price.

Chet shook his head, thanked him. He finished his beer and crossed to the Occidental Saloon. A patent medicine salesman there told him he had the latest invention to make him live to be a hundred. Chet frowned. If things went on like his life had lately, he wasn't certain that he wanted to stay around that long.

A finely dressed tubercular victim coughing in a bloodstained linen handkerchief and washing it all down with straight whiskey introduced himself in a deep Southern accent. “I'm a dentist. My name, sir, is Doc Holliday. You look new here.”

“I am. My name's Byrnes. I live in Preskitt.”

“Do you like rooster fights?”

“Not really.”

“Well, we will have a big, ass-kicking cockfight right here next Sunday afternoon. Yes sir, we have some man-eating roosters coming from Mexico to supplement the local birds. Hellfire man, the feathers will fly.”

“You must be a breeder of them.”

“I am sir. I have some of the best.”

“Good luck.”

Holliday laughed. “You sir, need a diversion.”

“Thanks, I'm fine.”

“What do you do?”

“I have cattle and a ranch up on the Verde River,” Chet answered.

“Well now, that is interesting.”

“It's hard work.”

“Riding and roping, huh?”

“Lots of that.”

“I guess I'll pull teeth. Some of them come out real hard. I also play cards. You play cards?”

“No.”

“Shame. There's some real good poker games going on around town. I'm going down to the Bird Cage Theater and play some right—” Coughing broke him up.

“Good luck,” Chet said after him.

Holliday made the batwing doors before his coughing made him lean against the doorframe with his shoulder for support until he recovered.

“Good luck,” Chet called after him. Turning back to his beer, he shook his head at the notion the man didn't have long to live.

“He's a strange guy, huh?” the bartender asked.

“Different. That is for certain.”

“You know him and Wyatt Earp are big friends?”

“No, but I met Earp once when he was in Wichita before he went to marshal in Dodge City.”

“Wyatt's here in town. You know that?”

“No. I'd like to speak to him about something.”

“Come around tonight. He'll be here.”

“I'll try to. If not, I'll catch him later. He may not remember me, but my name is Chet Byrnes.”

“Harry's mine. Nice to meet you, Byrnes.”

Chet left the saloon and walked the streets in the hot afternoon. The front door of the
Epitaph
newspaper office was open when he came under the cottonwood tree. He stepped inside and nodded to a man in an apron stained in ink.

“The boss is out today. Went to see about a guy who was shot by his wife.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, they're back together.”

“That might make a good new story.”

“Not for me. My wife shot me, I'd be gone. She wouldn't get a second chance to do that again.”

Chet waved to him and laughed. “Not a bad idea.”

He later stepped off into the barrio neighborhood where there were no boardwalks, and goats on ropes greeted him outside the jacals beside the ungraded street. Near-naked brown children drew back at his appearance and a woman standing in a doorway beckoned to him. She looked to be in her twenties and wore a short wash-worn dress.

“You are looking for company?” she asked.

“No, I was just walking around to see how the town was laid out.”

“I can show you the barrio.”

“What does your guidance cost?”

“Huh?”

“
Dinero.
How much?”

“Oh, you can pay me for what I am worth to you.”

“I can afford that. Show me.”

She put on some sandals on the go as she hurried to join him in the dirt street.

The girl pointed across the street. “Over there lives Señora Gomez. She is an old lady. Maybe a hundred. She is so old that she remembers when there were no gringos here.”

She walked beside him, naming various residents. “That is a cantina. We have three of them. That one is for old men.”

Chet saw some burros in a pen. “That a freight company?”

“Yes. He hauls supplies to some isolated villages in Sonora.”

“That's the church?” he asked about the small chapel nearby.

“Oh, yes. Our Mother of Jesus is there.”

Abruptly changing the subject, Chet asked, “Who would kidnap a girl and take her to Mexico City?”

“Carlos Ramaras.”

“Where is he?”

“Probably at his ranch down in Sonora,” the girl replied.

“Does he do that often?”

She looked stone faced and nodded. “He does it all the time.”

“Do you know of any girls he sent down there lately?”

She shook her head. “But two of my best friends, he kidnapped and sold them to a brothel in the capitol. One escaped. Maria came back and told me she would kill herself if he caught her again. After that day I never saw her again.”

Chet stopped walking. “I have seen enough. You're a fine guide.”

They turned and walked back up the street. A thirty-pound, long-haired, black shoat cut across the street in front of them, grunting as he hurried.

When they reached her house, the girl turned to Chet. “Come back again, señor.”

He paid her two quarters and she beamed. “You are very generous.”

“No, you are very gracious.”