Lucky, he tried to tell himself. Spring or summer, even early fall, ants would have been with the turkey buzzards, beetles, too. He studied the ground. Coyotes had already been there. Bits of clothing had caught in the rocks and yucca, or had been snagged on prickly pear. The ground around the dead man was stained brown from dried blood.
He had reached the body. What was left of a body, anyway.
The chest cavity had been ripped apart. So had the shirt, but Chance could tell it had been red flannel with a bib front. The shirt along the side hadn't been torn apart by the scavengers. He pulled a piece of cloth off the sticky mess of bloody flesh and bone, and put his finger through a hole, a hole no animal had made. He looked at the cloth carefully. The cloth was dried with blood, but he could make out powder burns.
Chance looked around. He didn't see a badge, but spotted a pair of glasses, one lens missing and the other broken, laying crumpled beside the man's eyeless head.
He couldn't identify the man. He had no features left, but Chance knew that turkey buzzards and coyotes weren't the only animals responsible. They had ripped through his flesh, eaten his eyes, pulled out his tongue, but a bullet had slammed into his left temple, and blown out the back of his head.
The man had been shot twice. In the side. In the head. The side wound had been first. Had to be, Chance figured, from all that blood he had found on Ray Wickes's saddle.
A shadow crossed Chance's face. He looked up and found Albavera standing over him. Chance shot a quick glance, and saw the three horses hobbled, the Winchester Centennial lying where he had left it. He stared at the black gunman. “Thought you were going to be sick.”
“I decided I'd better buck up,” he said. “Be a man. See if you need anyâ” He made the mistake of looking at the corpse. “Oh, hell.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that your lieutenant?”
“Yeah.”
“Shot in the head, wasn't he?”
“Yeah.” Chance pointed to the corpse. “Took another bullet in his side. That one caught him at fairly close range. There are powder burns on the cloth.”
“Reckon those two bandidos who jumped us did it?”
“No. For one thing, those powder burns on his shirtâClose range, like I said. Ray Wickes was green in a lot of ways, but he wasn't stupid. He wouldn't let a stranger get close to him. No, most likely, he knew who shot him. The first time. And that head shot? That pair of bandidos had Winchester carbines, .44-40 calibers. The bullet that blew off the lieutenant's head came from a much more powerful rifle.”
Chance couldn't get the image of Doc Shaw and that new High Wall rifle out of his mind.
“I'm sorry,” Albavera said, sounding like he meant it.
“Fetch the lieutenant's bedroll,” Chance said. “We'll wrap him in it. Take him back to Marathon, bury him in that church cemetery.”
“That boneyard's getting crowded of late.”
Chance rose. “It'll get a lot more crowded, too, before I'm finished.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The spade bit deeper into the sandy soil only to slam into a buried rock that left Moses Albavera shaking his ringing hands. Letting the tool fall, he leaned back against the mound of dirt, and examined his hands. “It would be a lot easier for me to dig this grave,” he told Chance, “if these bracelets came off.”
“They stay on.” With a grunt, Chance drove a pickax into the ground.
“My hands are getting blistered.”
“I don't care.”
The two men stood alone in the cemetery behind the Catholic church of Marathon. Chance swung the pick again, leaned the tool against the wall of dirt, and knelt, prying out a rock with his hands. He tossed the stone, and pushed back his hat. The morning was cool, the sun behind a wall of clouds. He rose, found the canteen, and drank.
“It doesn't seem right, if you ask me,” Albavera said. “Those two Rangers your captain killed, get sent off on a train with a pair of guards to get a fine funeral, and this lieutenant of yours gets buried here alongside a couple of dead vaqueros.”
Chance didn't answer. He just drank.
“Did Lieutenant Wickes have any kin?”
That time, Albavera got a response. “He wasn't married.” Chance tossed the canteen to his prisoner, who caught it with his cuffed hands. “That's all I know.”
“His saddlebag wasn't fastened. I noticed that when I got his bedroll. I secured the bag. He might have some personal property, name of his next of kin, something like that.”
“He might.” Chance hadn't thought to check. “I'll write or telegraph Colonel Thomas in Austin. If Wickes had any kin, and they want his body, they can dig him up, replant him in the family plot.”
“Poor bastard. He doesn't even get a coffin, just his bedroll.”
“Wood's scarce around here.”
“You're either the hardest rock I ever met, Ranger Chance, or the cheapest son of a bitch there is.”
Albavera got another response, one that pleased him. Dave Chance looked at him, and grinned.
Albavera drank, corked the canteen, set it aside, grabbed the shovel, and resumed digging.
Two hours later, when they had finished the grave, they lowered the remains of Ray Wickes into the hole, using ropes, and went inside the church to fetch the priest. They were at the door, the priest walking outside with a rosary and Bible, when Albavera cleared his throat, and pointed down the hill toward the town.
Coming up from the road that led to Presidio loped six riders.
“They're not Mexican,” Albavera said.
“They're Rangers,” Chance said. He turned to the priest, handing him a few coins. “Padre, sorry, but we can't stay for the funeral. Like I said, Ray Wickes was Catholic, a good man, loyal to Texas, and died in the line of duty. Say something like that.” He turned to Albavera. “Let's go.”
“You're kidding.”
“No, I'm not.”
As they walked down the rocky path from the church, Albavera snapped his fingers. “You knew they'd come back.”
Chance didn't answer.
Shaking his head, Albavera went on talking. “I tried to figure out why we were digging this grave. You could have paid the padre or some peons to do it. We could have been riding east, to deliver me to the authorities in Galveston, or riding south, to find that whore, find your Captain Savage. Instead, we spent most of the morning digging a grave. At first, I figured you're just too damned cheap to pay for a grave, or the state of Texas is too cheap. But, no, that wasn't it. We were here waiting.”
Chance shifted the Winchester Centennial under his armpit. Actually, he hadn't minded digging the grave. It gave him time to think, sort things out, figure out what the hell was going on. And it reminded him of those years swinging a sledge for the railroad.
“How'd you know they'd come back?” Albavera asked.
They had reached the flats, and started walking toward the empty lot where the railroaders had once pitched their tents before Savage had sent them packing off to Murphyville.
“Savage couldn't afford to leave Grace behind,” Chance answered at last.
“So what do you plan on doing?”
Chance levered a round into the heavy rifle. He kept on walking.
“You are seriously loco, Ranger Chance.”
They rounded the corner. Six horses stood in front of the Iron Mountain Inn. Two riders remained in the saddles. Another stood in the shade, leaning against the wall near the front door. All three put their hands on the butts of their revolvers, but just watched as Chance and Albavera made their way down the dusty, practically deserted street.
“Hello, Sergeant.” One of the mounted Rangers smiled. He didn't take his hand away from the revolver.
“Cutter,” Chance said, stopping at the edge of the boardwalk. He nodded at the other Ranger on horseback. “Joe.” Climbing onto the boardwalk, he greeted Bucky Bragg, who had pushed back that big sugarloaf sombrero he wore. He had taken it off a dead Mexican bandit he had killed two years back.
“Who's your prisoner?” Joe Newton called from his horse.
“Moses Albavera.”
“Ain't he the one that killed Prince Benton?” Taw Cutter asked.
“And Chet and Joe Marin in Galveston,” Moses Albavera answered. “And Bill Carter at the Bad Springs Saloon in Fort Stockton.”
“Bad Water Saloon,” Chance corrected. He kept the barrel of the Winchester pointed at the ground, but his finger remained inside the trigger guard, his thumb on the cocked hammer. “Captain Savage inside?”
“He is.” Bragg pulled open the door.
At a square table in the middle of the hotel's parlor, Captain Hec Savage sat in a rocking chair, head bent. His hat rested crown down beside his right arm on the roughhewn table, next to one of his Merwin Hulbert .44's. He was scribbling furiously on a piece of stationery. A cigarette burned in a nearby ashtray. Across from him sat Grace Profit, who turned and watched as Moses Albavera and Dave Chance came inside. The door slammed shut after them, and Savage looked up, smiling.
On the second-story landing stood Doc Shaw, the High Wall rifle cradled in his arms. Behind the registration desk waited Eliot Thompson, who was carving off tobacco from a plug of Star Navy with a folding knife. Chance positioned himself between the door and the front window, directly in line with Hec Savage, but out of view of any Rangers out front.
Lowering the pencil, Savage reached for the cigarette, took a long pull, then blew a smoke ring toward the ceiling. “Hello, Sergeant,” he said after a moment. “I see you caught your man.”
“I did.”
“Don Melitón didn't give you any trouble?”
“None to speak of. He might come after you, though. Killing two of his men.”
“A regrettable incident.” Savage crushed out the smoke in the ash tray. “But I think the old man will be hunting you before he comes after me.” He looked at the prisoner, sizing him up, nodding. “So you're Moses Albavera.”
“That's right.”
“Moorish?”
“That's right.”
Savage returned to the note he was writing, on his third page now. “You can't wait for the train here, Sergeant. Don Melitón might return. I don't hold out much hope that those railroaders I sent to Murphyville will keep quiet about what happened here. You should proceed to StrawbridgeâSanderson, I mean. All these towns changing their names because of the railroad confuses me. Travel to Sanderson. Wait for the Southern Pacific there. I don't think Don Melitón will think you'd ride that far. You will board the eastbound train when it arrives, and deliver your prisoner to the authorities in Galveston.”
Sanderson was a little less than sixty miles due east of Marathon. It had the reputation of a wild railroad town, with no law.
“Is that an order, Captain?” Chance asked.
Savage's hand moved wildly as he signed his name. “It is, Sergeant. I have another important duty for you, too.” He kept writing. Four pages now.
Chance studied Doc Shaw and Eliot Thompson, then looked briefly at Grace.
“Where's Demitrio Ahern?”
“Back at Fort Leaton,” Savage answered. “I left him with four men at our headquarters. Mainly to keep an eye out for Juan Lo Grande.”
“And Linda Kincaid?”
Setting the pencil aside, the captain pushed back his chair, tilted it on its back legs, and rocked a moment, considering his sergeant. “O'Brien and the others returned her to Fort Leaton. To keep her safe. She's what we call a material witness.”
“Wouldn't she have been safer in Austin or Houston?”
Savage nodded. “She didn't want to go. Isn't that right, Grace?”
Grace's head bobbed slightly.
Chance asked, “You'll be taking Grace, too?”
“It's for her own good, Sergeant.” He looked at the last page he had written, then folded the papers together, and held them in his left hand between his forefinger and middle finger. “Before you deliver your prisoner, Sergeant, you shall take this message personally to Colonel Thomas in Austin. That's an order, Sergeant Chance.”
“Is that your resignation or confession?” Chance asked.
Savage shifted uncomfortably in his chair. He flung the letter to the edge of the table.
“My demands, Sergeant,” he said, regaining his composure, smiling again. “I guess you could call this our articles of secession. The boys and I have decided to form our own province out here.”
“Savage, Texas.” Eliot Thompson laughed.
“No, not Texas. Not anymore. It's the kingdom of Savage,” Doc Shaw hailed down from the balustrade.
Grace eyed the captain with a look of bewilderment. Moses Albavera blinked, then tried something. “Captain, this new country you're founding. Would you have any use for a good man like me?”
“No niggers allowed in Savage,” Eliot Thompson said, and spit out a mouthful of tobacco juice that missed the cuspidor and splattered on the wooden floor.
“If you're so good, how come your hands are cuffed?” Savage asked.
Grinning, Albavera shrugged.
“Grace,” Savage said, “let's take our leave.”
“She stays,” Chance said.
“That I'm afraid she can't do, Sergeant.” Savage put on his hat, and reached for the .44, keeping his eyes trained on Chance as he slowly picked up the revolver, and slid it into the holster on his right hip. “She's a material witness, too. And, as you well know having just dug a new grave, Marathon is not safe for anyone these days.”
“That's what I want to know, Captain,” Chance said. “Which one of you killed Ray Wickes?”
A long silence filled the hotel lobby. Finally, Savage shook his head, and let out a little chuckle. “Well, Dave, I guess Doc Shaw and I both had a hand in it. I shot him first. Doc finished him. But you knew that already, didn't you, Sergeant?”
“I just wanted to hear you say it,” Chance said tightly.
“I've said it. Anything else you want to know?”
“Yeah. Hamp Magruder and young Wes Smith. Who killed them?”
“I shot Magruder,” Savage answered. “Doc killed Smith. Now here's a question for you, Sergeant. Which one of us will kill you?”
“You won't ever know, Captain, because you'll be dead before I hit the ground.”
Savage looked down. “Floor, Dave. Not ground. I'll be dead before you hit the floor. This hotel is pretty fancy, for Marathon.” He looked up, smiling. “But not today, Sergeant.” The captain rose, walked around the table, pulled Grace Profit gently to her feet. “You don't want Grace to get hurt, and if I don't return to Fort Leaton, the whore from Terlingua dies. Besides, you wouldn't kill me. You owe me, Dave. Or have you forgotten Fort Stockton?”
Chance fell quiet.
Grace looked at him, felt Savage's hand squeeze her shoulder. “It's all right, Dave,” she said. “I'll be fine. Captain Savage believes in the sanctity of womanhood.”
“That's right.” He shoved her forward, and followed her closely, picking up the note on the table's edge as he walked by. The door opened, and Grace walked outside. Savage stopped and held out the note.
“It's delivered to Austin. You catch the train in Sanderson. Savvy?”
Reluctantly, Chance took the note. “That's the way you want it.”
“No, Dave, not really. I wanted you and Ray Wickes escorting Smith and Magruder, and Miss Kincaid, on the eastbound. That's what I wanted. But Ray was stupid, and the whore got cold feet. And you”âhe shook his headâ“were always just too damned dedicated to this job. Had to go off after that . . . Moor. I didn't want to see you hurt, Dave. Damned sure didn't want to see you dead. Take the train. Hand the note personally to Colonel Thomas. Hell, you'll probably get invited to discuss my demands with Governor Ireland, too. And don't come back, Dave. Don't make me kill you.”