I covered my eyes with one hand, thought it over for about a second, then said, “Go on and get after her. Me'n Boz will be comin' along quick as we can. Probably catch up 'fore you can get to Del Rio.
Glo hit the door running. Minute later he was nothing more than a fading memory and a lingering cloud of dust.
Getting myself in gear and moving took some doing that morning. Felt like somebody stood over me the night before and beat me with a single tree. Boz appeared to have the same problem. When I finally did scramble up and set to the task, I must have said “Damnation,” twenty-five times or more while I saddled my animal. Just about had the job finished when Big Jim Boston strolled up and leaned against the stall rails. I glanced over at him and said, “You knew Clementine had struck out, didn't you, Jim?”
The mountainous smithy had his hands shoved behind the bib on his scarred and soot-covered leather apron. He gifted me with a sheepish nod, then said, “Gal paid me to keep quiet till you boys woke up this mornin', Lucius. Easiest money I've made in more'n a year.”
“She paid you?”
“Hell, yeah. Dropped a pair of ten-dollar gold pieces in my hand like they weren't no more'n a couple a grains a sand. You got any idea how long it takes me to make twenty dollars around a windblown dump like Carta Blanca these days?”
“Not a clue,” I said and jerked my saddle's cinch strap into place. “Sure it's right tough though.”
One skillet-sized paw came from behind Big Jim's apron. He waved at the world outside in a kind of meaningless, general, all-encompassing gesture. “Damned right, it's tough. Takes a couple a weeks to make that much money these days, by Godfrey. Whole town's a-dryin' up like rotten fruit layin' on the ground around a dyin' tree. Couple more years won't be nothin' left but blowin' dust and tumbleweeds 'round here.”
“Yeah, well, everybody's got problems, Jim. You shouldn't have let her go it alone. Gal don't have no business roving the countryside around these parts unaccompanied.”
“Come on, Lucius, gotta cut me some slack here. What that little gal gave me to keep shut, plus what I made on the horse and saddle I sold her is more money than I've seen at one time in three, maybe four months. Hard to pass on a deal like that when you have a family to feed. 'Sides, she strikes me as the type who can damn well take care of herself.”
Snatched up the reins and backed Grizz out of the stall. Led him toward the door with Boston hobbling along beside me. “Unfortunately that's the same mistake a lot of women make these days. But this one's not a woman yet. Only a girl, Jim,” I said. “And a mighty young one at that.”
“Maybe so, Lucius. But, I'll tell you true, sure as hell wouldn't wanna be either of them ole boys she's a chasin'. I mean, shit, she kilt the hell outta Roscoe Pickett 'thout so much as blinkin' one a them cold blue eyes a hern. Gal looks at me, my blood runs cold.”
“How would you know 'bout her doin' for ole Roscoe? You weren't there when it happened.”
“Tatum tole me 'bout it. Said it was the damnedest thang he'd ever witnessed. And I seen what was left of Roscoe afterward, when you boys was drinkin' it off.”
Hand-rolled dangling from his lips, Boz leaned against his horse and waited for me near a water trough just outside the barn's double-wide door. He nodded and said, “ 'Fore he left, told Glo to keep an eye peeled for anythin' unusual. Said we'd catch up with 'im quick as we could.”
“Told him the same thing myself,” I said.
Big Jim shook his head and stared at his feet. Said, “Well, good luck with catchin' up with her, boys.”
Boz pulled the smoke from between cracked lips, spit a sprig of tobacco at his feet, then said, “What the hell's that supposed to mean, Jim?”
The big-bellied Boston grinned. “Sold that gal a paint pony that you fellers would have trouble runnin' down on the best day any of you ever had. Big ole horses of yours are all loaded down with men twice that little gal's size and lots of iron. Wouldn't even be a race. Bet them gold pieces she gave me she's already in Del Rio by now.”
I gazed over my saddle at the smithy and said, “Well, you'd best offer up a prayer that we do exactly that, Jim. Any harm comes her way, I just might come back here and take it out of your lardy ass.”
As I threw a leg over Grizz's back, Boston patted the beast's enormous rump and said, “Ain't gonna worry much 'bout that, Lucius. Figure you'll see the light of reason 'fore then. 'Sides, it'd take you, Tatum, Johnson, and two hard-rock miners armed with sharpened picks to get anything out of an ass the size of mine.” He grinned then gave Grizz's rump a resounding smack.
Me and Boz headed out of Carta Blanca like red-eyed, fork-tailed demons were dogging our trail. Along the way, I offered up a silent prayer that we got to Clem before she found Murdock and Atwood. I had the uneasy feeling in my heart that either man would likely kill the girl graveyard dead and not so much as bat an eye, if'n her true identity should be discovered, that is. Could hardly bear the thought of another slaughtered child's funeral in my near future. Whole business weighed mighty heavy on my heart.
17
“. . . WALKED UP TO MISS CLEMENTINE AND TOOK HER PISTOL ...”
THE ROAD TO Del Rio plummeted south from Carta Blanca in the manner of a carpenter's snapped chalk lineâflat as a tabletop and straight as a planed board. A harsh countryside of colorful wildflowers, stunted greenery, dry washes, and reddish brown, rock-strewn earth fell away on either side of the rugged trace like the last remnants of a hellish world blasted by Satan's own fiery vengeance. A world inhabited with every form of biting, stinging, fanged, and clawed form of instant death a body could imagine.
My heart got to beating like a hand-pumped San Antone fire wagon the more I thought about the deadly consequences of what might well occur should the headstrong Clementine Webb err but a few steps off that rough path. Nothing I could've conjured up, in my wildest imaginings, however, came anywhere close to preparing me for the strange, twisted reality of what lay waiting as we drew to a clod-slinging halt near a Mexican peon's stick-sided, hay-roofed
jacal
, just a few steps off the road, about four miles from downtown Del Rio.
A pen of bleating goats off to one side of the makeshift dwelling raised almighty hell as we stepped off our animals. A troop of scrawny chickens squawked, flapped, and scattered in every direction and added to the general hubbub of racket caused by our thunderous arrival.
A buck-nekkid child of about three or four stood in the hut's open doorway and sucked his thumb. A disembodied female arm snaked from the interior dark and drew him away as we approached the place on foot.
His ever-present shotgun draped over one arm, Glo rose from a shaded bench beneath the pitiful shack's stingy overhang. He strode out to meet us, handed me a fresh-filled canteen, and said, “Ain't gonna believe what I gots to tell you, Mistuh Dodge.”
I took a swig of the refreshing liquid, then handed it off to Boz. Wiping my damp lips on the sleeve of my shirt, I said, “Well, gonna hope over hope it's good news.”
Glo shook his head. He narrowed his gaze and peered off to the south, as though distracted. “Naw, sur. Cain't say as how it is. Don't appear good at all. Not to me. Leastways on the surface of it.”
Boz dragged his hat off and upended the canteen over his sweaty mop of hair. He wagged his soaked, dripping noggin back and forth like a wet dog. Managed to sling huge, soaking drops of the water all over himself, me, and pretty much everything else within ten feet.
He offered the canteen back to Glo, then slicked his hair down with one hand and said, “Well, go on ahead, Glo. Tell us. Might as well have it all. Cain't be that bad. Can it?”
Glo stared at his feet again. The canteen still dangling from the strap in his hand, he glanced up, then pointed toward the road behind us. “Pert sure I found Murdock and Atwood's trail. Neither one of 'em made any effort to cover up. Miss Clem, her tracks are right on top a what those bad men left.” He stopped and for several seconds didn't say anything more but let the container of water fall to the ground next to one foot.
“Well,” I said and impatiently motioned for him to go on.
Our old friend glanced up and nodded toward the spot he'd pointed out before. “Whole trail got right messy over yonder by that big rock, 'tother side of the road.”
“Whaddaya mean by got pretty messy?” Boz said.
“Well, near as I could figurate, Mistuh Boz, when they got here, sometime late yesterday afternoon, Murdock and Atwood met up with two other riders over yonderways. 'Pears them others came straight outta Del Rio, joined up with them two murderin' skunks I 'uz trailin', then they all rode on back into town together.”
“But you're just figuratin' on that one, right?” Boz said. “Actual events might not have transpired quite that way a'tall.”
“Well, naw, suh, Mistuh Boz. Actually happened exactly that way,” Glo said and hooked a thumb toward the
jacal
. “See, the feller what lives here, name of Benito Suarez, tells as how he seen them fellers a-sittin' they hosses and talkin' for several minutes 'fore they struck out for town.”
“What about the girl? What about her?” I said.
Glo shook his head. A pained look scrunched his tense, ebon brow into a series of darker, tighter lines. “Well, I followed her and the rest of 'em on into town, see. She trailed up right behind 'em others.”
“Little gal went into Del Rio behind Murdock, Atwood, and a pair of unknowns? That what you're tellin' us?” Boz said.
“Yah, suh. Course, gotta remember, she come on quite a few hours later. But sho' 'nuff, that's what I'm sayin' all right. Think I come close to catchin' her 'bout the time she reined up out front of a joint on Del Rio's Main Street named the Broke Mill Saloon.”
“Came close?” Boz said.
“Couldna been behind her more'n a minute or two. Oddest of circumstances though, don't you know. Seems as how Murdock, Atwood, and them other two was standin' outside under the Broke Mill's awning when she rode up. Gal musta stopped when she seen somethin', or somebody, familiar. Confronted them boys like she's gonna kill 'em all right on the spot. I watched a goodly bit of the noisy business from the doorway of a big ole grocery store and dry-goods outfit, 'tother side of the street.”
“Confronted? Confronted?” Boz blustered. “How'n the hell would Clem know who to confront? Girl wouldn't have known Murdock and Atwood from a pair of red-eyed cows.”
“Didn't say her attention was aimed at either of them boys. Right doubtful she recognized either one of them skunks,” Glo said and eyed each of us as though heavily burdened by some kind of mystery-laced secret.
I rubbed my jaw with the knuckles of one hand and said, “You mean to say Clementine challenged one of the two men we haven't identified yet?”
A reluctant nod of the head, and Glo added, “Yah, suh, that's the story for sure. Swear 'fore Jesus, Mistuh Dodge, gal acted like she done knowed one of them men. Most like she mighta knowed him all her life. Thought it was right strange-like and mysterious myself.”
Boz spanked one leg with his hat. “Now wait a second. This ain't makin' no kind of reasonable sense. Let's back up some. Go at it from the beginning. Start with a place where I can get a real handle on this, Glo.”
Glo ran a hand up to the side of his head, scratched a spot over one ear, and looked puzzled. He said, “Well, like I done said, I followed the trail on into town. Spotted Miss Clementine outside the Broke Mill. Slipped up on that store's covered porch to see what was happenin'.”
“Store's covered porch,” I mumbled.
“Yah, suh. Did kinda surprise me some when I seen Miss Webb a-standin' there in the street. She had that little pistol of hers out, you know. Appeared she 'uz a yellin' at them four men what was just a standin' on the boardwalk out front of the saloon.”
“Confronted them right out in the street?” Boz mumbled.
“Yah, suh. Well, kinda. Started out like that but didn't last, you know?”
“No, we don't, Glo. Go on, clarify this thing for us,” I said.
He took a deep breath and ran a finger back and forth under his nose as though something was tickling his upper lip. He coughed, then backed up again. “See, I got there right behind the girl. Seen her jump off that pony Big Jim done sold her. Bear, he right in the middle of it all, growlin' and snappin'. She went and pulled her pistol. Goes to yellin' at one of the fellers on the porch.”
“You hear any of the conversation?” I said.
“No, suh. Couldn't, for certain sure, make out what was being said. Too far away. But, lawdy, Mistuh Dodge, that 'ere little gal was some kinda fierce upset with one a them fellers in particular. Sounded most like she called him ever kinda name she could lay her tongue on.”
“You didn't recognize the man Clem singled out?” I said.
“Naw, suh. Never seen that particular man before.”
“So, standing outside the Broke Mill Saloon there was Atwood, Murdock, a feller you didn't know that the Webb girl was yellin' at, and one other gent. You recognize the other gent, the forth one, by any chance?” Boz said, while swiping at the drenched, inside band of his hat with a faded bandanna.
Glo stared at the ground and kicked at the brittle, dusty earth with the toe of one worn boot. “Yah, suh. Sorry to say, but I knowed 'im alright. I done seen 'im before. Took a spell of studyin', but I knowed 'im for sure.”