Lawman from Nogales (9781101544747) (16 page)

“Ana . . . ?” he called out again as he crossed the floor and looked inside the small, empty bedroom he and his wife shared. On an empty crate beside a straw-filled pallet on the dirt floor, he saw a letter lying beneath a blackened candleholder.

He picked the letter up and read it silently to himself.

“Oh no, Ana . . . ,” he whispered to himself, shaking his head in disbelief. As he continued reading he began repeating over and over, “On no, oh no, oh no,” his words growing louder and more painful with each repetition until they ended in a long, mournful cry.

 

Outside, across the stretch of flatlands, the old well tender heard Hector's long, loud plea to heaven. The sound caused the little man to stop in his tracks, roll the tin bathtub off his crouched back and straighten enough to stare toward the weathered adobe.

Three times, he heard Hector cry out in an anguished voice. With each wail, he saw the horses stirring about nervously in the dusty yard. On the third cry, the little man nodded to himself, as if knowing that some terrible pain had now been overcome. He picked up the tub and continued walking on toward the adobe, following the horses' tracks as he had for the past three days, since they had left the public well at El Pueblo Fantasma.

As he approached the adobe, he saw Hector standing with the letter gripped tight in his fist through an open window. Hector stared out at the little man with reddened eyes and a sick, bitter expression on his face.

The old man stopped beneath the widow and rolled the tin tub from his back like some strange desert beetle shedding its shell. He stared at Hector without offering a word.

“My wife has left me,” Hector said in a tight voice, struggling to keep his emotions from showing.

“Oh . . . How can this be?” the well tender whispered. “A man's wife cannot leave him. It is forbidden. It is an act against the law of God's divine province.”

“Do not tell me about God's law, Bent One,” Hector said venomously. “My Ana has left me. She has taken my son. She goes far away to live with another man.”

The well tender raised a gnarled finger and shook his head.

“Then you must exercise your right to hunt her down and kill her—not only her, but the man as well. No woman can take a man's son away from him and
live.
”

Hector stared off across the sandy, rolling flatlands and watched a dust devil stand up as if arising from sleep and spin away in flurry of dust.

“My son is not the blood of my blood, Bent One,” he said as if confessing himself to the well tender. “He is the blood of the man my wife goes to live with. When I married my Ana, the boy was still waiting to be born. When he was born, I welcomed him and vowed to raise him as my own—”

“Stop,” the little man said with a wince. “I must hear no more.” He held up a hand toward Hector, as if to keep any more information from leaving his lips. “Why do you tell me these things?”

“I don't know,” said Hector. He looked away, out across the empty, desolate land. “Why do you follow me here, all the way from the Ghost Town well?”

The little man shrugged his crooked shoulders.

“It was time for me to pick up my tub and leave Pueblo Fantasma,” he said. “It is not good for a man to live only among the dead. I only stayed because of the tub. It is not easy to carry a tub in this land.”

“Oh?” Hector stared back down at the little man. “Yet, when I offered you one of the horses to pull your tub, you turned me down. Instead you have walked behind me all this way.”

“
Sí
, and I have made it here without the horse's help,” he said proudly. “I have carried my tub to this spot, on my own, from the town of the dead with help from neither man nor beast.”

“Good for you,” Hector said dismissively. He spit and stared off in the direction he knew his wife and the boy had taken.

“You will go after her?” the little man asked.

Hector didn't reply.

“To kill her, or the boy's father, or to bring her back with you?” he asked, staring up at Hector's troubled face.

“She was a good wife,” Hector said. Then, as if talking to himself he said, “She could not bear this life that was forced upon her. How could I kill her for being weak when it is I who brought the weakness out of her?”

“So, you kill the man?” the well tender asked quietly.

“I cannot kill the man without hurting Ana. I cannot kill Ana without hurting the boy. I cannot destroy one without destroying all three, and I cannot destroy all three without destroying myself.”

A silence set in beneath a whir of hot wind. After a moment of contemplation, the little man scratched his head and looked back up at Hector.

“So, you do nothing?” he said. “You do not seek vengeance for what has been done to you?”

“What has been done to me has been done by everyone in this world I live in,” Hector said. “I cannot blame one without blaming all.”

“Ah . . . I see,” the little well tender said, almost in relief. He gave a crooked grin. “And one cannot destroy the entire world in which one lives, eh?” He gave a short chuckle.

But Hector didn't share in either the sense of relief or the humor of what the little man offered. Instead, he stared down at him, the shotgun still in his hand.

“Don't sound so sure of yourself, little man,” he said.

 

Inside the Perros Malos Cantina, Three-Hand Defoe stood with a cigar in his right hand, cigar smoke curling up the lapel of his swallow-tailed suit coat. His artificial right hand lay inside his coat pocket. His left hand lay wrapped around a shot glass atop the bar.

“Here comes your Mexican squirrel,” Hopper Truit said across the bar as she wiped a damp bar towel in a circle.

Defoe looked toward the open doorway as Hector walked inside and crossed the floor toward him, a look of determination in his dark eyes.

“Well, well, my boy, Hector,” Defoe said with a superior grin. “I wasn't expecting you fellows back so soon.”

“I am alone,” Hector said in a clipped tone. He stood in front of Defoe, noting the cigar in his right hand, seeing him adjust the cigar in the fork of his fingers.

“Oh?” said Defoe. “Then where is Sonora Charlie and Clyde Jilson?”

“They are both dead,” Hector said flatly.

Defoe looked stunned for a second.

“The lawman killed them both?” he said.

“No,” Hector said, “I killed them both.” He stared at Defoe as he rapped his knuckles on the bar for Hopper Pruitt to pour him a drink.

Along the bar, several drinkers stopped talking among themselves and turned their attention toward the two.

Defoe gave Hopper a nod; she set up a shot glass. Hector wrapped his fingers around the glass as she filled it with rye.

Defoe grinned. He watched Hector raise the glass to his lips and empty it. He chuckled under his breath and gave a glance at the faces lined along the bar.

“For a second there I almost took you serious, Hector,” he said. “Where are they?”

Hector set the empty glass down hard on the bar top, his shotgun in his right hand tipped slightly up.

“They are both in hell,” he said. He raised his left boot and raked the butt of his shotgun across the rowel of Sonora Charlie's Mexican spur, spinning it.

“Whoa . . . ,” the Frenchman whispered, realizing no one would be wearing those spurs if Sonora Charlie were alive. He reached his right hand out to lay his cigar in an ashtray atop the bar.

But Hector raised the tip of the shotgun barrel toward him, stopping him. Drinkers along the bar backed away, seeing a fight in the making.

“Keep all of your hands out where I can see them,” Hector said to Defoe. “I have a question for you.”

Defoe stopped, keeping his cigar in his fingers. “I can see that you have something stuck in your craw, Hector. What can I tell you?”

“You had Sonora Charlie give me three twenty-dollar gold pieces to help him kill the lawman from Nogales. How much did you give him and Clyde Jilson?”

“All right, I gave them a
little
more, Hector,” Defoe admitted.

“You gave them
much
more,” Hector corrected.

“That's true,” Defoe admitted. “But they were more experienced. They're the best two—”

“They are
dead. . . .
I killed them,” said Hector cutting him off.

“All right, I paid them more than you,” said Defoe. He offered a tight smile; a bead of sweat glistened on his forehead. “But the fact is, a Mexican just does not need as much money as an—”

“Bad answer,” said Hector, cutting him off. The shotgun bucked and exploded in his hand.

Defoe's body flew backward in a spray of blood. His fake arm flew up out from his coat pocket and spun like a pinwheel until he hit the floor. Half of his face and skull splattered on the far wall and stuck there.

No sooner had Hector pulled the trigger than Hopper Truitt made a move for a large pistol lying beneath the bar—but Hector swung the cooked shotgun around an inch from the tip of her nose.

Raising her hands chest high, she shouted, “Don't shoot,
Squirrel—
I mean, Hector—I mean Señor Pasada!” Her face turned ashen in fear. “I mean,
whatever
you want me to call you.”

“Call me Pancho,” Hector said. He stretched over the bar top, reached down and raised the big Colt from beneath it.

“I—I was scared,
Pancho
!” Hopper said. “I didn't know what I was doing. I swear it!”

“Don't worry, Hopper,” said Hector. “I am not going to kill you.” He stuck the Colt down into his belt. “If I killed you, I would be without a bartender.”

One of the onlookers stepped forward and said warily, “Are you taking over the Bad Dogs Cantina?”

Hector turned facing the drinkers.

“That's right, I am taking the cantina for my own.” He looked back and forth, his shotgun poised and ready. “Everything that belonged to Three-Hand Defoe now belongs to me—unless there is one among you who steps forward and kills me and takes it for himself.” He looked all around searching for such a person who might try to defy him. “Is there such a man among you?”

The drinkers milled nervously in place. In a far corner, a quiet outlaw named Bud Lowry sat nursing a glass of rye whiskey, having watched everything that went on. But he only looked down at his rye and kept his mouth shut as the young Mexican's dark eyes passed over him.

Hector gave a hard smile to all the drinkers and waited for a moment while his challenge hung in the smoky air.

“No takers, eh?” he said at length. “In that case, I invite all of you to join me at the bar.” He raised the shot glass from the bar top as if in a toast. “Drinks are
on the house.
”

The drinkers trampled toward the bar whooping and cheering loudly. From the side door, Glory Embers, Sidel Tereze and a plump young dove named Lynette squealed and laughed and pushed their way to the suddenly crowded bar.

But as they passed, Hector snatched Tereze by the forearm and pulled her to his side.

“You, come with me,” Hector commanded. “Show me around my new property.”

Tereze looked repulsed at first, but she caught herself quickly and presented a warm smile as she hooked her arm in Hector's.

“I was hoping you'd ask, Hector,” she said. “Why don't I take you to Defoe's sleeping quarters?”

“Call me Pancho from now on,” he said. He waved a hand at Hopper Truit, who stood busily tending bar.

“Two bottles of tequila for us,” Tereze called out when Hopper looked up from slinging mugs of beer along the bar. “It's about time you and I got to know each other,
Pancho
,” she whispered close to his ear.

Chapter 18

The midmorning sun had climbed high in the east when the Ranger and Erin Donovan followed Big Chili Hedden's trail into the settlement alongside the Rio Verde
.
The hoofprints of Hedden's dark bay still showed clearly in the dirt from the night before.

As the pair rode onto the dusty street, they saw two mounted
rurales
riding their horses toward them at a walk, dragging Hedden's dead horse on ropes behind them. On the street behind the two
rurales
, the rest of the armed men stood watching, standing among their horses at the hitch rails.

Spotting Hedden's horse as the pair of horsemen dragged the animal past him, Sam raised a gloved hand.

“Hola,”
he called out in Spanish. “Where's the owner of that horse?”

“
Hola
yourself,” said one of the armed
rurales
, neither of them stopping now that they had the dead animal's weight scooting along behind them.