The Alamosa Trail

Chapter 4

After learning of the job opportunity, Jim sent telegrams to several of their friends, asking them to meet Frankie and him in El Paso. Without waiting for any replies, they set out for El Paso themselves, aiming to reach the border town within two more days.

“You sure there’s really work for us, Jim?” Frankie asked, pulling his horse up to ride abreast of his cousin.

“I’m sure.”

“How do you know?”

“Say what you want about Clay Allison, but I believe him to be a man of his word. If he said he has work for us, he has work for us.”

“I hope so. After we sent telegrams to everyone asking them to meet us, I’d hate to have to face ’em and tell ’em it was all a mistake.”

“Listen, he gave us twenty-five dollars apiece to meet him there, didn’t he? You think he would have done that if he didn’t have anything for us? There’s no way he would just give that money away.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right. Now our only problem is if the telegrams reached the people we sent them to. And if they’ll actually come, once they get the wires.”

“I figured we owe the boys who rode in the Trailback outfit with us the first chance,” Jim said. “But if nobody shows up, we’ll hire some men in El Paso. You got any idea how many out-of-work cowboys would kill for this job?”

The two cousins continued to ride through land that was red, brown, and open. They were in southwest Texas, where there were few houses, fields, or even ranches to break up the vistas. The horizons were studded with red mesas and purple cliff walls, and in the distance they saw blue mountains. When night came, the stars and moon shed so much light that, though everything was in shades of silver and black, they could see almost as clearly as at midday.

The next morning they found themselves in the small village of Sierra Blanco. Hot and dusty, the town was little more than a two-block-long main street with flyblown adobe buildings on either side. The cousins stopped to stable their horses; then they crossed the street to the saloon for food and a few drinks.

Lunch was steak and beans liberally seasoned with hot peppers. They washed the meal down with mugs of beer.

“Those beans’ll set you afire,” Frankie warned. “But damn me if they aren’t about the tastiest things I’ve put in my mouth in quite a while.”

“You ate them so fast, how would you know what they taste like?” Jim teased.

Whereas Frankie was already finished with his meal, Jim was less than halfway through.

“I wanted to get the eating out of the way so I could get on to the more important things,” Frankie said. He smiled at one of the bar girls, and she caught his smile and returned it.

“Yes, I see what you consider more important.”

“Oh, now, look at that smile, would you, cousin? She sure is somewhat more winsome than Dog Woman.”

“Anyone is more winsome than Dog Woman.”

“I do believe that little girl is falling in love with me,” Frankie insisted.

“She’s in love within anyone who has two dollars to take her upstairs,” Jim replied.

“Well, then, doesn’t this work out well? It just so happens that I have two dollars.” Frankie stood up. “I won’t be long.”

“You never are,” Jim replied with a chuckle.

Shortly after Frankie went upstairs with the girl, a man came into the saloon and stepped up to the bar. He moved down to the far end where he could see the whole saloon, and he examined everyone through dark, shifty eyes. He was small, wiry, and dark, with a narrow nose, thin lips, and a scar, like a purple lightning flash that started just above his left eye, hooked through it leaving a puffy mass of flesh, then came down his cheek to hook up under the corner of his mouth. He used his left hand to hold his glass while his right stayed down beside the handle of his Colt .44. The pistol, Jim noticed, was being worn in such a way as to allow for a quick draw.

Of all the customers in the saloon, only Jim had actually noticed the man, and as he continued to eat, he studied the small dark man carefully. Jim knew that this man, whomever he was, was about to kill someone. He knew it as clearly as if the man had been dressed in a black robe, carrying a scythe, and wearing a death’s-head.

The beaded strings that hung over the front door clacked loudly as two men came into the saloon. The new arrivals were wearing badges, and they stood just inside the entrance for a moment, peering around the room. One of them had eyes to match his gray hair and mustache, and wore a sheriff’s star. His deputy was much younger, and from the man’s dark hair and eyes, Jim guessed he might have been Mexican.

The two lawmen studied the room until their gaze found the beady-eyed man at the bar. Their muscles stiffened, and when Jim looked toward the small dark man, he realized this was what he had been waiting for.

“Mister, would your name be Will Shardeen?” the sheriff asked.

“What if it is?”

“You got a lot of gall, comin’ into my town.”

“I ain’t got no argument with you, Sheriff.”

“Don’t matter whether you have or not. I’ve got a whole drawerful of dodgers on you, so I’m goin’ to have to put you under arrest. You goin’ to come easy, or hard?”

“I ain’t comin’ at all,” Shardeen answered.

“Oh, you’re comin’, all right,” the sheriff insisted.

“I’d advise you to back off, Sheriff,” Shardeen said. “Like I told you, I ain’t got no argument with you, unless you push it.”

Shardeen’s voice was high, thin, and grating. In a world without weapons he might have been a pathetic figure among men, but his long, thin fingers, delicate hands, and small, wiry body were perfectly suited for his occupation as a gunman. “Now why don’t you just back on out the door before this goes any further?”

The sheriff shook his head. “I can’t do that, Shardeen,” he said. “I can’t just walk away from this. This is the way I make my livin’.”

“All I can say is, it’s a hell of a way to make a livin’,” Shardeen replied.

Using his left hand, Shardeen put his drink down, then stepped away from the bar. The sheriff’s deputy stepped several feet to one side while still facing Shardeen. He bent his knees slightly and held his hand in readiness over his own pistol.

“Well, let’s do it, Sheriff,” Shardeen said.

“You don’t want this, Shardeen.”

Shardeen smiled, an arrogant little smile. “Yeah, I do want it,” he said.

Jim saw the sheriff lick his lips nervously, then look around the room.

“Any of you fellas willin’ to sign on as my deputy?” he asked.

No one volunteered. In fact, several men who considered themselves too close to any possible action got up and moved away. Only Jim remained at his table.

“You?” the sheriff called hopefully to Jim. “You want to sign on?”

“Sorry, Sheriff. This just isn’t any of my business,” Jim replied.

“Yeah,” the sheriff said. Again, he licked his lips. “Can’t say I blame you.”

“Looks like you’re on your own, Sheriff,” Shardeen said. “It’s still not too late for you to walk away.”

“No, I . . . I can’t do that,” the sheriff said. He held his hand out toward his deputy. “Er nesto, you better stay out of this. Your wife just had a baby.”

“I’m no’ goin’ let you face this hombre alone, Senor Martin,” the deputy said. His swarthy face was bathed with sweat, though it wasn’t that hot right now.

Jim turned his attention back to Sheriff Martin. The lawman was so nervous that he telegraphed when he was going to make his move by the narrowing of the corners of his eyes, the glint of light in his pupils, then the resignation. Martin lost the contest even before it began.

The sheriff started for his gun.

The arrogant smile never left Shardeen’s face. He was snake fast. He had his pistol out and cocked, before Martin could clear his holster. When Martin saw how badly beaten he was, he let go of his pistol, and it slid back into the holster. At that moment Shardeen fired, his gun spitting a finger of flame six inches long.

“Bastardo!” the deputy yelled as he pulled his own gun.

Shardeen’s gun roared a second time. Ernesto, like Sheriff Martin, was unable to get off a shot. A large cloud of smoke billowed up from Shardeen’s gun. As the smoke drifted to the ceiling Shardeen stood there, the smoking gun in his hand, the arrogant smile still on his face. The sheriff and his deputy were dead on the floor.

Jim heard footsteps running upstairs, and when he saw Shardeen whip his gun around, Jim drew his gun behind Shardeen’s back. Shardeen heard the deadly click of sear on cylinder as the hammer came back on Jim’s gun. He looked around to see that Jim had the drop on him.

“Mister, you already dealt yourself out of this. Have you gone crazy?” Shardeen asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Jim answered. “But that’s my cousin up there. I wouldn’t take it too kindly to see you shoot him.”

“You shoulda stayed out of it,” Shardeen said in a grating voice. From the look on his face, it was obvious that Shardeen was thinking about calling Jim’s bluff.

Jim smiled at Shardeen, an icy smile that told the gunman he wasn’t afraid.

“You’re thinking about trying me, aren’t you?” Jim asked in a voice that was calm as if he were calling a bluff in a poker game. “Well, go ahead. You’re pretty fast. You might beat me.”

“Why don’t you put your gun away?” Shardeen asked. “We’ll do this fair and square.”

“No, I have a better idea. I think I’ll just kill you and get it over with.”

“No!” Shardeen shouted in sudden fear. It was the kind of fear he instilled in others and everyone in the saloon watched in morbid fascination as the drama played out before them.

“Get out of here,” Jim said.

Shardeen’s face curled into a vicious sneer as he slipped his pistol back into its holster.

“We may run into each other again,” Shardeen warned. “When the odds are more even.”

“Could be,” Jim admitted.

“I’ll be lookin’ forward to it,” Shardeen said. Backing carefully across the floor, he put his hand behind him, feeling for the beaded strings. Once he found them, he slipped through them, then was gone.

Ten miles out of Santa Fe, a heavy, booming thunder rolled over the gray veils of rain and the ominous black clouds that crowded the hills. Though it had not yet reached them, the storm was moving quickly, and Barry Riggsbee and Tennessee Tuttle took ponchos from their saddlebags, shook them out, then slipped them on to be prepared for the impending downpour.

Barry was about five foot eight, ash-blond, young in years, but with the hard face and the seasoned blue eyes of someone who had seen more than his share of hard times. Tennessee was six foot one, with broad shoulders and dark hair. Having found no work in Santa Fe, the two were about to leave for Texas when a telegram from Jim Robison arrived telling them of some job riding for Clay Allison.

“Tennessee, we need to find us some place to get!” Barry called.

“Take a look over there,” Tennessee called back. “Looks like a line shack.”

“Looks deserted, though.”

“All the better,” Tennessee insisted.

The line shack was a good two miles away and the rain broke about halfway there. They prodded the horses into a trot and covered the last mile in short order. A lean-to extended from the side of the shack, and the two cowboys put their horses under the makeshift shelter before they went inside.

The door was padlocked from the outside, proof, if proof was needed, that the shack was empty. Tennessee jerked on the padlock to make certain that it was really locked.

It was.

“So what do we do now?” Barry asked.

Tennessee thought for no more than a moment, then he rammed his shoulder into the door. With a wrenching sound, the hasp tore loose.

“Hated to do that,” Tennessee said. “But it serves ’em right for being so mean as to lock a place like this. They had to know that from time to time someone might need it for shelter.”

“That’s probably why they locked it,” Barry said. “To keep people like us out.”

“Yeah? Well, then I’m glad I broke in.” With Tennessee leading the way, the two men stepped inside.

A dim, watery light filtered through dirty windows, barely pushing back the shadows. It was cold and damp and the air of the little deserted shack was redolent with the sour odor of being closed up for a while. But the stale smell of woodsmoke from fires long extinguished still lingered.

“Wonder if there’s anything in the possibles drawer?” Barry asked, as he started rifling through the cabinet.

“You know there ain’t goin’ to be,” Tennessee said. “Whoever wintered here done just what we done. They stayed until the last drop of coffee was drunk and the last bean was et.”

“Ha! They left some matches!” Barry said, triumphantly holding up a box. “Leastwise, we can get us a fire goin’.”

Half an hour later, with the rain coming down hard outside and a wood fire snapping in the little potbellied stove inside, Barry Riggsbee and Tennessee Tuttle drank the last of their coffee and chewed on a piece of jerky.

“Well, now, all things told, I’d say we’re livin’ in high cotton,” Tennessee said as he pulled his boots off and held his feet toward the stove. “We got a roof to keep the rain off, and a fire to drive out the cold.”

“A beer would be nice,” Barry said.

Tennessee snorted what might have been a laugh. “A beer?”

“Yeah. I mean, let’s keep this in perspective. Being inside by a warm fire is nicer than being outside in the rain. But it lacks a hell of a lot in being tall cotton.”

“Damn, you’d bitch if you got hung with a new rope,” Tennessee said with a laugh.

Barry was quiet for a moment, then he asked, very solemnly, “Tennessee, you ever see a man get hung?”

“Uh, no, not really,” Tennessee answered. “I was in a crowd once when they hung someone, but he was on the other side of the fence from me so I didn’t really get to see anything. How ’bout you?”

“I saw a man lynched once,” Barry answered. “It wasn’t a pretty sight.” Unconsciously, he pulled his collar away from his neck. He cleared his throat, then changed subjects. “I bet it’s two more days before we make El Paso. If our food lasts that long.”

“We don’t have to worry none about our food lastin’. More’n likely I’ll still be chewin’ on this same piece of jerky,” Tennessee said, holding up the piece of withered meat. Both men laughed.

“Wonder what ranch this is?” Barry asked as he looked around the little cabin.

“Not much tellin’. ’Bout the only thing for sure it, it prob’ly had as big a cow die-up as any of the other ranches did. Else there’d still be cowboys here,” Tennessee replied.

“I’ll say this for ’em—the cowboys that worked here had a good place to winter in. I’ve seen lot worse line shacks.”

“That’s true. We’ve wintered in worse ourselves,” Tennessee said.

Barry let his eyes sweep slowly around the little cabin.

“Hey, there’s a newspaper,” he said, pointing to a shelf over one of the bunks.

“It’s prob’ly old.”

“What difference does that make? I haven’t even seen a newspaper in a month of Sundays. No matter how old it is it’ll be news to me.” Barry retrieved the paper. “It’s dated March third, 1886. What’s today’s date?”

“Damn if I know,” Tennessee answered. “I think it’s 1886, though.”

“From the cold rain, I’d make it late March or early April,” Barry said. “So the paper isn’t all that old.” He read for a moment, then whistled softly. “Well, imagine that.”

“What?”

“Out in California they’re loading oranges onto trains and sending them all the way to New York to sell.”

“Yeah? We live in amazin’ times, don’t we?” Tennessee replied.

“I reckon we do.”

“What else does it say?”

“There’s a story in here about the big snow-storm. They’re callin’ it the ‘Blizzard of 1886.’ ”

“What’s it say?”

“It’ started on January sixth, and they’re calling it the worst blizzard in history. Temperature dropped from sixty-five degrees to fifteen below zero in less than two hours.”

“That’s right. It did do that,” Tennessee said. “I recollect I was down to the south pond and was warm enough that I was thinkin’ about how nice and cool the water looked. Then the snow hit and I wasn’t sure I would be able to find my way back to the bunkhouse. Then again, it wasn’t that much better in the bunkhouse. The snow blew in through the cracks around the windows and between the boards so that by the next morning it was six inches deep on the floor.”

Barry looked up from the paper. “Well, we weren’t alone. According to this paper, no part of the western plains was spared,” he said. Then he began to read the article aloud. “From Montana to Texas, ranchers lost upward of sixty to ninety percent of their cattle. Many cattlemen abandoned their ranches without any attempt to round up or rebuild their herds. It is estimated that twenty million cattle died.’ ”

Barry was quiet for a moment.

“What are you readin’ now?” Tennessee asked.

Barry looked up from the paper with a sympathetic expression on his face. “It says lots of cowboys died, too, froze to death while they was trying to save the herd. They died for twenty dollars and found, workin’ on ranches that was owned by folks who live back east somewhere. I doubt the ranch owners even knew the names of the cowboys who died for them.”

“Yeah, well, at least Mr. Brookline knew Cal’s name.”

“That ain’t the same thing. Mr. Brookline didn’t own Trailback, if you recall. It was owned by some folks in England, and you can bet they didn’t know Cal’s name.”

“That’s true. But at least we come through it alive.”

“I suppose we did, but when you get down to it, we aren’t much better off than Cal and the others who died. We’re nearly out of food, we don’t have two pennies between us, and we can’t get work anywhere.”

Tennessee snorted. “Find somethin’ else to read. Don’t that paper have any good news in it?”

“I’ll read the humor column,” Barry suggested. He read for a moment, then chuckled.

“What is it?”

Again, Barry read aloud:

A missionary traveled to a far-off land where he encountered cannibals. Inquiring about Reverend Smith, his predecessor, the missionary was informed that the Reverend Mr. Smith was no longer among the living.

“Oh, that’s too bad,” the missionary says. “And did you not find him to be a tender-hearted man?”

“Yes,” the cannibal chief answered, smiling, as he picked his sharpened teeth. “His heart was very tender. So was his liver.”

Both men laughed. Then Barry put the paper down. He tapped his vest pocket, where the wire they had received from Jim was neatly folded. “You think that telegram we got was real? You think Frankie and Jim really have a job for us down in El Paso?”

“Well, they’re pretty good boys,” Tennessee replied. “And it ain’t cheap to send a wire, so don’t reckon they would get in touch with us if they didn’t have something lined up.”

“Yes, but the question is, what?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, it matters. What if they’re planning on something that we want no part of?”

“What could there possibly be that we wouldn’t want anything to do with?”

“Robbing a bank maybe? Or a stagecoach. Or a train.”

Tennessee rubbed his chin. “If it was, would you be game for it?”

“Is that what it is?” Barry asked.

Tennessee shook his head. “I don’t know,” he answered. “I’m not saying it is. I was just wondering how you would feel about something like that.”

Barry sighed. “Tell the truth, Tennessee, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I mean it’s not something I ever gave much thought to before. But right now, with no money, no work, and nobody hiring, I can see how a fella might ride a crooked path. I know I wouldn’t want to rob any person. I figure they’re just like me, trying to stay alive. But a bank, a stagecoach, a train? Well, that wouldn’t be exactly like you’re taking money from any individual now, would it?”

“Maybe not, but stealing is stealing, no matter who you’re doing it to. Besides which, once you start down that path it doesn’t take a whole lot to wind up like one of those fellas we were just talking about.”

“Getting hung, you mean?” Barry asked.

Tennessee nodded. “Yeah.”

Barry snorted. “Well, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t saying I was going to do it, or even that I would do it. I was mostly just talking, that’s all.”

“Maybe Jim and Frankie have something honest lined up for us,” Tennessee suggested.

“Yeah, maybe,” Barry said. He walked over to one of the bunks, then stretched out in it. “I guess we’ll be finding out in another couple days. Right now, I plan to take advantage of this bunk.”

“Yeah,” Tennessee said, crawling into one of the other bunks. “Me, too.”