Servant of the Law Page 10

  “Oh.” She swallowed hard, wondering if this territorial marshal was an answer to her prayers. Although she didn’t remember actually praying, she thought maybe God had read what was in her heart. Her mind raced frantically, causing her movements to become flustered. “How do you do, Marshal. Have a chair. Have you eaten?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He removed his hat and pulled out a chair at the kitchen table. For a fleeting moment he wondered why his presence had caused her to become agitated, but he surmised she was simply still in a state of nervous shock due to the loss of her son. He lowered himself onto the chair, trying to read the changing expressions that crossed her thin face.

  She felt certain that this man, this territorial marshal, had come to track down Josh’s killers. To hide her growing excitement, she turned and busied herself with stoking the stove. “I’m sure you haven’t eaten, Marshal. Why do men say they’ve eaten when they haven’t? I’ll fix you something; it will be just few minutes. In the meantime, you can have a cup of hot coffee.” The smile on her face when she turned felt brittle. She hoped it didn’t look as strained as she imagined it did.

  He gratefully accepted the steaming cup that she placed on the table. He noted the slight trembling of her hands, and a flicker of anger stirred inside him. What kind of animals had killed this young woman’s child? To hide his thoughts, he lifted the cup of coffee and blew gently across the rippling surface. “Don’t bother fixing me any food, ma’am. I really don’t need any.”

  “Oh, yes you do.” The firm note in her voice caused him to look up at her warily, but she insisted. “You’ll need every meal you can get, Marshal Michaels, if you’re riding out after those killers.”

  He remained silent and watchful. The woman was obviously overwrought. She stood before him, her hands clenched around the handle of a black skillet, her head thrown back in what appeared to be defiance. A niggling feeling of uncertainty forced him to frown. He didn’t care for the unspoken words between them, but some instinct told him to keep silent for the moment.

  She placed the pan back on the stove, then turned and moved in front of him. She held his direct gaze as she sat down in the chair opposite him. Folding her hands on the tabletop, she gave him a level look. “Marshal Michaels,” she asked in a clear, concise voice, “when are you leaving to track down those men?”

  “In the morning.” There was something about the set of this woman’s jaw, and the purposeful manner in which she had asked the question that immediately put him on guard. “Why?” he asked flatly

  She drew a deep breath, then plunged in. “Because, Marshal, I intend to go with you.”

  Although the suspicion had fleetingly crossed his mind, he had immediately dismissed it as ludicrous. He forced a small smile of amusement and cocked an eyebrow at her. “Mrs. Arnold, I hardly think that’s a fitting thing for a married woman to do.”

  She gritted her teeth in irritation. Obviously the man was treating her as a willful child. She drew her shoulders back and jutted out her chin. “I’m afraid you don’t understand, *Marshal. When you ride out of here tomorrow to get those murderers, I’ll be right behind you.”

  His mouth pursed into grim lines of disapproval, for he could see that the woman was serious. “Mrs. Arnold—”

  With sharp resolve, she shook her head, and spoke quickly. “No, not missus. Ben took Josh and me in, but we’ve never married. He lived up to his part, I lived up to mine. Now, do you see?”

  “No.”

  She fought down the urge to hit the stone-faced man. He was being deliberately stubborn. She gave up trying to explain her marital status. Placing her palms on the tabletop, she leaned forward and spoke intently. “You can like it or not, Marshal, but I am going with you. You can’t stop me from riding fifty to a hundred feet behind you,” she said triumphantly.

  Blowing out a deep breath, he ran a hand over his forehead and prayed for patience. “Now look here, Mrs. Arnold. All right, you’re not Mrs. Arnold,” he said as she opened her mouth to protest. “You simply don’t understand the situation. I am a lawman. It’s my job to track down these men. I have a job to do and I do it in my own way, which does not include having a woman with me on the trail.”

  She closed her eyes and gestured expressively with her hands. “I don’t care what you say. I have a job to do, too.”

  He looked up in relief as Ben Arnold came back into the room. “Mr. Arnold, would you please explain to your, er … wife that it simply isn’t right for her to ride with me?”

  Ben shook his head. “Dolly’s a good woman, Marshal, but once she’s made up her mind on something, hell won’t stand in her way.”

  A sigh escaped her lips. You told him right, she thought. She looked at Ben and smiled. A good thing that she had spoken with him earlier. He understood her need to take part in tracking down her child’s killers. Chancing a quick look at the marshal’s chiseled face, she hid a smile of triumph. Whether the stiff-necked man liked it or not, he would soon find out that she was going to be a burr in his horse’s tail. He would simply have to accept the fact.

  John Wesley closed his eyes against her stubborn expression. He was not sure how he should go about asking God to help him, but it was apparent he would need an armful of extra spiritual strength to deal with Dolly Arnold.

  7

  “Where the hell are we?” the Kid shouted at Leo. The sun had moved across his back, but he was so disoriented and uncertain of their direction of travel that he had no conception of time.

  “Easy, Kid. We’re going to Snowflake to find a doctor,” Leo said soothingly. “It’ll be somewhere south of us. You want to get down or something?”

  Although his bladder felt swollen tight, the Kid gritted his teeth and answered curtly. “No, let’s keep moving.” He blinked his eyes, wondering if they had gotten worse. He could vaguely make out a gray shadow, and assumed it was Leo and his horse. But even as he strained to see more, that too was wiped away from his eyes, leaving a black world of emptiness. “Leo! Leo! Goddamnit, I can’t see a thing. Not a damn thing! Those whiskey-selling snakes are going to pay for this. You’ve got to promise me, Leo, that you’ll cut out their black heart.”

  “Don’t worry, Kid, I will.” Leo’s voice came from nearby. The concern and pity in it filled Bobby with helpless rage. He ground his teeth in futile frustration, hating his incapacitated state.

  “Those stinking dogs. I want to eat their hearts, Leo. I want to eat them raw. You know what I mean?”

  “Sure, sure, Kid. We’ll find you a doctor in Snowflake, and he’ll fix your eyes, right as rain again. Then we can go after them.”

  In his hands, the Kid clutched the saddle horn. A thirst for revenge churned his stomach, tying him up in knots. “No, wait, Leo. You’ve got to go get them whiskey peddlers. I ain’t hearing of no doctor till we kill them dirty bastards.”

  “Aw, Kid, let’s get you to the doctor first. You’re the man with the gun. I ain’t no match for them three. You seen them. Kid, those guys were mean. Not too mean for the Coyote Kid, but too mean for me. Please, Kid, let me take you to the doctor first, huh?”

  “Aw shit, Leo, you don’t even know if there’s a doctor in Snowflake. And even if there is, what guarantee we got that he ain’t a quack? Hell, I might end up deaf as well as blind.” He reached up and touched his sightless eyes. His fingertips felt the moisture of his eyeballs, and for that he was grateful. He had seen men who had lost an eye. Their bad eyes had reminded him of a shriveled-up, punctured bladder.

  “Are my eyes all gray, Leo?” he demanded, not really wanting to know the answer if they were.

  Leo pulled the horses to a halt. The Kid could feel Leo’s breath on his face as he obviously peered into the blank walls of his eyes. “No, they’re still brown. They look fine, Kid. I think a doctor can save them. You’ll see. I mean it. Why, a doctor will put some powder in them, and quick as a wink you’ll see again.”

  The Kid swallowed a gulp of eagerness. “If you’re lying to me—” Hi
s voice cut like a whip.

  “I’ve never lied to you Kid. Hell’s bells, I’m doing all I can. You hear me, all I can.”

  Forced to agree, he nodded. There was no need to get Leo all riled up and whining again. They were miles from anywhere, and he couldn’t see to get away from an old woman let alone a whiny cohort. One thing he was determined about—one way or another those whiskey poisoners were going to pay. And pay heavily. Being blind was worse than being in jail. He hated jails. Jails were closed-up, smelly places. He had been in jail once, and that was enough to do him for a lifetime.

  As Leo led his horse, Bobby recalled the eternity he had spent in that hellhole called a jail.

  The whole incident began when he received a letter from a man by the name of Otto Pernell. Mr. Pernell had written for him to come to his ranch in eastern New Mexico. The name of the town was Arido, which the Kid knew meant “dry” or some such thing. He arrived by stage, then rode a horse that Otto kept at the wagon yard for his guests’ convenience out to the ranch.

  Otto was a pinch-faced man with a long nose nestled amid a bushy mustache. He reminded the Kid of a big barn rat. It had been cool in the living room of the spacious adobe house where they talked. The Kid sipped whiskey and smoked the cigar that Otto had given him.

  “There is a man who steals my cows,” Otto began in a German accent as they settled down to business. “But I cannot catch him. All year he eats my beef and then laughs when I bring a deputy to arrest him. You have no proof, he says, and he is right. This man is sly like a weasel.”

  The Kid blew out a stream of smoke. “Who is this guy?”

  Otto was silent for a moment, then he shrugged his shoulders. “Gunther. His name is Noel Gunther.”

  “Well, you can quit worrying about Noel Gunther, Mr. Pernell. He won’t steal any more of your beef,” the Kid assured him confidently as he flicked ashes in the copper ashtray beside his chair.

  “That easy, huh? No wonder they call you the Coyote Kid.”

  He drew in on the cigar and nodded at the rancher. The bothersome rustler would soon be sprouting grass. “Oh, I do charge two hundred and fifty dollars,” he added casually.

  “A little high, isn’t it?” Otto asked doubtfully. “I thought …”

  The Kid shrugged and looked back at Otto with his best poker face. “Of course, he could go on eating your beef. Be a few years before he eats that much.”

  Otto shook his head decisively. “No, by gawd, he is not eating one more head of my beeves.”

  “That’s just the way I feel,” the Kid said, smiling in agreenient. “You can never cure these rustlers. Why, I recently handled one like him down south of here. This rustler wasn’t out of prison six months before he was back to stealing cattle. See, they don’t learn.”

  “I know, Kid. The sons of bitches are like chicken-killing dogs. By the way, did you see that yellow dog when you rode in here?”

  “Yes, sir. He barked at me.”

  “Well, he’s been killing my wife’s chickens.”

  The Kid nodded. “Only one way to handle that.”

  “I know.” Otto frowned heavily.

  “No problem. You pay me to eliminate Gunther, and I’ll do the dog at no extra charge,” the Kid offered casually.

  The rancher paused for a moment, his face expressing shocked surprise. Then he expelled a sigh. “You’re right. I’ll get the money. You wait here.”

  After Pernell left the room, the Kid stood and strolled to the thick oak door. With the cigar still in his mouth, he opened the door and stepped outside on the shaded porch. The warm air washed over his face as he searched the dustpacked yard. He blew out a puff of smoke, then deliberately cleared his throat in a loud, openmouthed manner.

  Two barking dogs came rounding the side of the house then stopped and growled at him in warning. The yellow dog came a step closer, with his wolflike teeth bared and a throaty growl rumbling through his lanky body. He advanced boldly, as if unaware of the .38 in the Kid’s hand.

  A single bullet smashed through the dog’s head. It exploded a portion of the cur’s right eye and half of his tiny brain. Then all was quiet in the yard, with the only sound that of the Kid ejecting the empty shell. The other dog had long before disappeared in a fit of yelping.

  Mrs. Pernell came running out of the house shouting. “What’s happening? What is going on?” Her eyes grew wide and her face turned ashen when she spotted the grizzly sight of the dead dog at her doorstep.

  “Sorry, ma’am. He was rabid,” the Kid explained with a shake of his head. “He was in the early stages yet. I think the other dog is all right; we’ll just have to keep an eye on him.”

  Mrs. Pernell’s hands flew to her face in horror. She turned and rushed back inside the house. With a twisted smile on his face, he watched her go. Stupid old woman. He shook his head and followed her. He needed another whiskey.

  A little later when Otto counted out the money to him, the Kid noticed the man’s hands tremble. The Kid stayed and visited for another hour, leisurely drinking Pernell’s whiskey and smoking his cigars. He felt it was his duty to give the man plenty of time to back out of the deal. The extra time gave his employer an opportunity to dwell on the fact that he was actually sentencing Gunther to death and that made it even better. When he rode out later that afternoon, he was satisfied that Mr. Pernell understood that he, and not the Coyote Kid, would be the real killer of the rustler.

  The Kid soon discovered that Arido was a small dusty adobe town with little entertainment. The cantinas were smoky stale caves. Spanish was the first language of the citizens. The hotel where he stayed, seldom changed their linen, and the mattresses were gritty to sleep upon. The whores he saw were all slobs, fat and old and probably diseased.

  To add to his disappointment, he soon learned that Gunther had gone to Sante Fe, hauling a load of freight, and wouldn’t be back for a week. The delay cost him another trip out to Pernell’s place. The extra time he must spend waiting cost the reluctant rancher another hundred dollars. The Kid sat in the same chair, puffing on a cigar, drinking Otto’s good whiskey. “You got any more chicken killers?” he asked him conversationally.

  “What?” Pernell jumped in alarm at the question.

  “I just thought, since I’m here and working for you, if you had any more chicken-killing dogs you didn’t want, I’d get rid of them for you.”

  “Oh no. Heavens no!” Pernell looked as though he had just swallowed a rock. “The dogs are just fine—,” he added hastily.

  The Kid shrugged and drew in on a fresh cigar. “Okay, so long as my employer’s happy, I’m satisfied.”

  Since Gunther was out of town, and the Kid had nothing pressing to do, he began to spend a lot of time in the Tolteca cantina. There was a pretty señorita who worked there, and he felt certain that she was not a full-time prostitute. Her name was Maria. She waited on the tables and kept her dignity with a sweetness that appealed to him. They became friends quickly. Whenever she had a spare moment and business was slow, she sat with him at his table.

  “People say that you are a plenty bad hombre,” she said quietly, her large dark eyes observing him intently.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Do I look like a bad man?”

  “No, not bad,” she said with a smile, displaying her beautiful ivory white teeth. Her brown eyes dazzled with pinpoints of starbursts under the lamp, like sunlight dancing on clear water. Her dark skin was smooth and inviting where the vee of her breasts disappeared beneath the fabric of her blouse.

  “What do you do for a living?” she asked cautiously.

  “Law work,” he said, as though explaining to a child. “I serve the law, like you serve tables. It’s my job. Sometimes there are bad men who steal and rob, and I must get them for the law. See, I’m not the bad guy. I don’t steal or rob. I just catch the men who do.”

  “Oh, how wonderful,” she exclaimed. “You are like the sheriff, no?”

  “Yes, except that a sheriff must work
in one place. I travel all over the territory to find these bad men.”

  “Oh, Bobby, I see now why these men do not like you; fhey are all crooks and thieves.”

  He beamed at the newfound star in his life. “Yes, that’s it exactly.”

  “Oh, Bobby,” she sighed with adoration. “You must come to my father’s garden tonight when the moon rises. We will be alone. I swear that it will be safe. We can hold each other for many hours, yes?”

  His brows shot up in surprise. He leaned forward and whispered urgently, “Of course, Maria. Where is this place, your father’s garden?”

  “Two blocks down, go to your left, then up the alley to the second gate. It will be unlatched for you.” She glanced around, then continued with a rueful look. “I must go back to work, there are more customers. But you will come tonight, Bobby?”

  “Yes, of course, I’ll come,” he assured her. She squeezed his hand and hurried off with a swish of her petticoats.

  He glanced around the room, noting the glares and curious looks he was receiving. Yeah, he snickered silently, go ahead and stare at me, you stupid bastards. The Coyote Kid will pleasure himself with your prettiest señorita when the New Mexico moon rises tonight.

  Later, he watched Maria leave her job for the day. The slovenly whore who replaced her offered one of her ample breasts to any man at the bar who seemed willing to fondle her. He tried to ignore her blatant display. Filled with contempt for her, he frowned when she came over to his table.

  “So, you are the gringo who makes the pretty señorita laugh?” she said under her breath, her voice full of innuendo. She bent over and vigorously wiped his table with a rag, causing her partially exposed bosom to quack for his benefit.

  “Maybe,” he said curtly, not inviting further comment from the woman.

  “Ah,”—she grinned knowingly—“you want the tender young chicken, huh, gringo?”

  His eyes narrowed and a muscle flicked in his jaw. “Get out of my face, bitch!”

  “Oh!” she yelped and drew back in fear. Her eyes like saucers, she stared at him in shock. Then shrugging her shoulders, she tossed her greasy head in a haughty gesture and flounced off to the other side of the room.’