CHAPTER SEVEN
There wasn't much to Marathon, Texas. Oh, it had a post office, behind the front desk at the two-story hotel, but only one saloonâand it was only a tent.
The town had been founded a few years earlier when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway crew, laying track east from El Paso for the Southern Pacific, reached those wind-blown plains surrounded by mountain vistas, although a few cattle ranchers and sheep men had settled in the area some time before. Albion E. Shepard, an ex-sea captain who had surveyed for the S.P., established his Iron Mountain sheep ranch in the spring of 1882. When he applied for a post office, he recommended the name Marathon. Seems the area reminded him of the plains of his native Greece.
By 1884, thanks to the railroad, Marathon had become a key shipping point in West Texas, but the town probably had fewer than seventy-five permanent residents. Of course, if you asked Grace Profit, the only permanent residents were those buried in Boot Hill or in the boneyard behind the Catholic church on the other side of the S.P. tracks. She hadn't been convinced Marathon would really last.
That's why her saloon, which she had set up when the railroad first reached that point, remained a canvas structureânot stone or adobeâheld up with mesquite posts, and held together by Grace Profit's stubbornness.
She had turned thirty-seven last month. Her face was bronzed, weathered by years working canvas saloons at railroad hell-on-wheels towns across Texas, Kansas, and New Mexico Territory, but most menâso she had often been toldâfound her stunningly beautiful. Her hairâblond, shoulder lengthâwas tied up in a blue silk bandana. She wore hand-sewn Congress gaiters she had ordered from Bloomingdale's, a beaded brown cashmere jersey over her chemiseâtoo fancy to be cooking in, but the railroad men liked itâa navy blue skirt, and a ruffled apron trimmed with lace. Since she was outside, she had donned the heavy gray double-breasted range coat her ex-husband had owned.
It was about the only thing that two-timing cad had left her, but it kept her warm on winter nights, and she wouldn't trade it to have that son of a bitch back.
Her eyes were like sapphires. That's what most men noticed about her. They made men overlook the crow's feet, few strands of gray hairs, and her leathery skin, although she needed spectacles to read these days. She had a brand-new book,
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain, on the bureau by her bed in the hotel, the latest copy of
Lippincott's Magazine
, and a month-old edition of the
Tucson Citizen
an eastbound traveler had left behind that she couldn't wait to read.
Whenever she decided to close up the saloon.
She stood outside, grilling mutton over a mesquite-wood fire, watching the setting sun turn those crystal skies into a palette of orange, gold, red, yellow. The wind had died down, and the temperature had risen into the low forties, though it would surely plummet as soon as the sun finished sinking behind those mountains and mesas.
From the west, on the road from Murphyville, came a buckboard, escorted by a pair of riders on dark-colored horses. She studied them a moment, then turned her attention to the mutton, forked the meat over, the aroma pleasant, the sound of the grease dripping onto the coals reminding her that she hadn't eaten since breakfast. It had been a busy day at the saloon. The railroaders, having received their pay, had gotten good and drunk, and now they were hungry. Likely, those men in the wagon would be hungry, too, and good and drunk before midnight came.
She looked up again, and lowered the fork to her side.
The driver of the buckboard was a man, but beside him, wrapped in a blanket, rode a woman.
They drove past the depot, where one of the men wheeled his horse, and dismounted.
Grace glanced at the mutton, then called out to a man in red sleeve garters who stood inside the tent saloon, making whiskey. “Horatius?”
“Yes, ma'am?”
“Cut up this mutton. Put it on plates. Deliver it to the S.P. men.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Make sure they pay you before they eat.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
He stepped through the opening, and Grace handed him the fork. Pulling up the collar of her range coat, she thought about stepping out toward the road to see who those strangers were, but decided business came first. She needed to finish making that whiskey while Horatius fed the railroad men.
The swamp-root she served at Profit's House was her own blend. Grain alcohol aged in a porcelain-lined preserving kettle for ten days with burnt sugar and two tablespoons of iodine, colored with four five-cent plugs of Star Navy Chewing Tobacco, then poured through a milk strainer to cut down on the number of tobacco flakes a patron might swallow, and blended with water from the three-hundred-foot-deep well behind the depot. Two parts whiskey, one part water.
You had to do it that way, she reasoned. Anyone who drank that wretched water straight was bound to get really sick, maybe die.
She shed the coat. A couple of cast iron stoves kept the tent quite warm. Hanging from posts and from a hemp rope beneath the canvas top, coal oil-burning lanterns kept the saloon well lit.
Horatius served mutton to the railroaders, while Grace mixed the whiskey and water, funneling the finished product into brown clay jugs, which, when full, she corked and set on the mesquite table behind the bar. The front canvas flap opened, and two men walked inside, one of them escorting the woman to a table, the other headed straight for the bar. Before he was halfway across the room, the flap parted again, and the third man entered, slapping dust off his hat. Apparently, he had finished whatever business he had at the depot. He looked around before taking a seat across from the woman.
Leaning against the bar, the newcomer rubbed a gloved hand across heavy beard stubble, and set his derby hat on the bar. Grace picked up a relatively clean tumbler, a fresh jug, and walked to him. She poured a shot and slid it in front of him.
A badge cut from a peso was pinned on the bib of his red shirt.
“On the house, Ranger.”
The man looked up. “Thanks.” He downed the shot, and his eyes immediately watered. “Maybe.” He coughed. “Maybe I thanked you too soon.”
Grace smiled, and refilled his tumbler.
He didn't look like a Texas Ranger. Too old. Too bald. He wore plaid trousers, a red bib-front shirt, a yellow bandana, well-worn brown boots, and old Spurs. A russet gunbelt with a Colt holstered butt forward hung on his left hip. He wore eyeglasses that highlighted his brown eyes, but Grace figured he needed the glasses to see both near and far. She only needed hers to read.
“I've met some Rangers up here,” Grace said, tucking a strand of blond hair back underneath her silk bandana. “Captain Savage,” she said, trying to conceal her bitterness. “Dave Chance. Wes Smith. But I don't think I've ever had the pleasure of your company.”
“Reckon not, ma'am. I don't think I've been north of the Chalk Mountains since I was posted to Captain Savage's battalion two years back. Name's Wickes, ma'am. Ray Wickes. I'm a lieutenant with Company E. Based down at Fort Leaton near Presidio.”
“Grace Profit,” she told him.
“Pleasure.” He lifted the glass, but merely wet his lips with the potent brew. “I know Dave Chance. He's a good man. You haven't heard from him of late by chance?”
She shook her head. “Why?”
“He went after a man-killer named Albavera. The darky killed Prince Benton down in Shafter.”
She'd had the displeasure of meeting Prince Benton two or three times. She'd shed no tears over his passing.
“But I'm afraid I'm bearing bad news, Missus Profit”âhe sipped the whiskey againâ“about Wes Smith.”
“Oh?”
“Yes, ma'am. I regret to inform you that he's dead. Got killed when Captain Savage attacked Lo Grande's camp. That's why we come here. To Marathon.”
That saddened her. She had met Wes Smith only once, but he had seemed a nice lad. Too young, really, to be a Ranger.
The lieutenant pointed to the woman and the other two Rangers sitting silently at a table near the door flap. “Catching the train. Got to get that woman to her kin in Houston. And we're escorting Private Smith and another slain Ranger, Hamp Magruder, for proper burials. They're packed in charcoal in coffins in the back of the wagon, though, cold as it has been, I don't reckon they'll ripen too much.” He fished a coin from his pocket, slapped it on the bar, and asked for the jug and two more glasses.
She obliged him.
“Well, ma'am,” Wickes said, “I best get this liquor to Turp and Babbitt. They've worked up a powerful thirst.”
Before he could don his derby and head to the table, Grace asked, “Who's the woman?”
“Just a whore from Terlingua. She got taken by Juan Lo Grande's men. We rescued her down at San Pedâat Cibolo Creek, I mean, near Don Melitón's
rancho
.”
Grace had heard enough. “Jesus, Wickes,” she snapped, ducking underneath the roughhewn cottonwood plank that served as the Profit House bar. The Ranger lieutenant looked astonished as she moved past him, dodged Horatius, who was hurrying to the bar, and ignored a few catcalls from the railroaders as she made her way to the table.
The two Rangers leaped up, sweeping off their hats, but Grace ignored them, pulled up a chair, and gripped the woman's right hand. Her eyes were vacant, her face ashen. She looked petrified.
“Miss . . .” Grace began, and quickly turned to one of the stupid Rangers. “What's her name?”
“I forgot,” the one with the drooping brown mustache said.
“It's Linda,” said the one with no chin. “Linda something-or-other.”
“Kincaid.” Ray Wickes said. “Linda Kincaid. You know her?”
“No, Lieutenant, I don't. But I know enough that a woman who's been through what she has doesn't need to be sitting in this saloon while you three drink whiskey that'll blind you if you're not careful.”
The woman's dress was torn, stained with blood, most of the buttons removed. Grace could even see the woman's left breast.
“Christ, she's still wearing these clothes. Did anyone ever think to give her a bath?”
“Yes, ma'am,” Ray Wickes said. “Our captain, Hec Savage, he asked this Mex woman to give her a bath, and a dress, but, well, the Mex woman said she didn't have a dress to spare, and the woman started screaming, saying she didn't want to take a bath, that she'd never get clean again.” He finished the whiskey.
The one with the drooping mustache snorted. “Don't that beat all, coming from a whore?”
Grace ran her fingers through the woman's greasy hair, and shook her head.
“Lieutenant Wickes is right, ma'am,” No Chin said. “Maybe she would have snapped out of it. Maybe we could have found her some man's clothes that might have fit, but Captain Savage ordered us to bring her here.”
“Ordered us to proceed with all due haste,” the lieutenant added, bobbing his head. “We had to do it.”
“She'll be all right,” the chinless one said. “Once she gets back to Houston.”
“She said that's where she wanted to go,” Wickes said. “Got kin in Houston.”
“'Course, she said that before she started screaming,” Drooping Mustache said.
“I think her mind's gone,” No Chin added.
“When's the train get here?” Wickes asked.
“Man at the depot said noon tomorrow,” No Chin answered. “But he told me to bring you these.” He pulled out a handful of telegrams from the pocket of his mackinaw.
Grace helped Linda Kincaid to her feet, steered her toward the doorway.
“Ma'am,” Lieutenant Wickes asked. “Where you going?”
“She's not waiting with you till noon, Lieutenant,” Grace snapped. “She'll be in my room. Horatius! I'm gone till tomorrow afternoon.”
The Iron Mountain Inn was pretty nice. The rooms were large, if spartan. Clean. Comfortable. Kind of permanent, Grace always figured. Until the town died, and the owners either pulled the timbers apart and carted them off to the next town, or left the place behind to rot in the wind and dust.
Linda Kincaid sat naked in a large bathtub of black tin, trimmed with blue and gilt stripes, a wooden bottom and handles. Grace sat beside her on a bench outside the tub, rubbing her back with Turkish bath soap, careful not to press too hard against the cuts and black bruises. The woman had said nothing, hadn't protested the hot water, hadn't made a noise as Grace undressed her and put her in a tub of steaming water. She just sat there, eyes barely blinking.
“I can't go on.”
At first, Grace thought she had imagined it, but as she absently lowered the bar of soap, she saw Linda Kincaid's mouth trembling, and tears finally leaking from the corner of her hollow eyes.