Widowmaker Jones (16 page)

His bullet struck the man with the carbine in the center of his chest and toppled him over the back of his saddle. Newt felt the Smith buck in his hand and recocked it on the downfall. The dead man's horse veered wide, but the other two bandits were charging forward straight at him. Something whipped past his right ear and another bullet kicked up dust at his feet. His second shot missed Miguelito and there was no time for a third. The two bandits were already on top of him.

Miguelito fired down at him point-blank, and although his shot missed, he lashed out with his boot at Newt's face. Newt ducked and staggered sideways, right into the path of the other rider. The horse hit him at a dead run, knocking him down. A flying hoof struck him a glancing blow in the back of the head, and he was slow to get to his feet. He expected the bandits to pull up and turn back to finish him off, but both of them were fleeing down the road.

He scrambled to find his pistol where it had been knocked from his grasp. He dug it out of the powdery roadbed, but already knew that the bandits were far out of his effective range. The judge came running out of the marsh carrying the Sharps buffalo rifle Matilda Redding had given Newt.

“Where were you?” Newt asked.

“Thought it was best that I hung off to the side and covered you.” The judge was breathing hoarsely from his exertion.

“You left me alone with three of them.”

The judge gave him a sheepish grin. “Wasn't sure how many were coming, so I thought it best to look things over before I committed to anything.”

“You told me to stop them.”

“I told you to take cover in that thicket. What did you think they were going to do? Ask you to sit down to a tea party?”

The judge went to the clump of trees and rested the Sharps on a mesquite limb, aiming down the road. Miguelito and the other survivor were already two hundred yards off and rapidly increasing the distance.

“How's this gun sighted in?” The judge pitched his sombrero on the ground and put his cheek to the gunstock and peered through the brass tube of the scope.

“I don't know. Never shot it.”

“Have to do a little guessing then,” the judge said. “There now, a little Kentucky windage and proper elevation is all it takes.”

Before Newt could say anything else the Sharps boomed.

T
he buffalo gun bellowed and the white horse staggered, took three more lumbering strides, and then flipped end over end.

“Shoots a little low at that range.” The judge had the Sharps's breech open and was thumbing another finger-length cartridge in it.

Miguelito was on his feet and he moved fast for a heavy man. He swung up behind his partner on their remaining horse and they were running again by the time the judge fired his second shot. It was a clean miss; no more dead horses and no more dead men.

“Held a little high that time.” The judge ejected the spent shell and slung the Sharps over his shoulder. “This Sharps kicks like a mule, but my God she'll reach out there and touch them.”

Newt appraised the distance to the dead white horse. It was at least four hundred yards away.

The judge was standing over the man Newt had killed. He booted the body in the ribs. “You drilled this one center. Thought for a minute there you were going to try to talk them to death.”

“Those two that got away—Cortina is going to know we're coming for sure.”

The judge found the dead bandit's pistol and he jerked the gun belt from the corpse. He pitched the rig to Newt. “Take that. It might come in handy.”

It was an old Remington-Beals cap-and-ball Navy converted to take brass cartridges, with the grips worn slick and the long barrel mottled and freckled with rust. A handful of .38 rimfire rounds were tucked into the dry-rotted loops on the gun belt.

The judge picked up the dead bandit's carbine. It was equally old and in the same poor condition. The judge frowned over it in a disappointed manner and then took a piece of latigo string from his pocket and tied it around the stock's straight grip so that he could hang it from his saddle horn later. “Not worth much more than five dollars.”

“I would have thought a professional outlaw would have better guns,” Newt said.

“Bad decisions like that probably led him to a life of crime. It's been my experience that most bandits ain't the thinkers you'd expect them to be,” the judge said. “Why don't you go get the horses while I look his body over for evidence?”

“Evidence?”

The crafty look came over the judge's face like a mask. “Might have something on him that will tell us the whereabouts of young Cortina.”

Newt followed the bent and broken growth to the horses, getting his boots soaking wet in the process. He led the horses back out onto dry ground in time to see the judge putting something in his pocket—something he had taken off the body.

“Looking for an extra peso or two?” Newt asked.

The judge frowned at him, but didn't reply.

Newt handed over the judge's horse and mounted his own. The dead man's horse was standing not too far off. He rode over and caught the flighty gelding with more than a little difficulty. The judge eyed the horse he was leading when he came back, and a sly grin cracked his face again.

“Looks like you came off far the best when it comes to salvage operations,” the judge said. “That ain't much of a horse, but he'll still bring twenty or thirty dollars, and that saddle a few dollars more.”

Newt dismounted again and hung the dead bandit's pistol belt on the Circle Dot horse's saddle horn, “Help me load the body.”

The judge looked at the dead bandit. “No need to bother with him. Leave him lay. You ride into Zaragoza with that body and you're asking for trouble. He might have friends there that wouldn't take kindly to those that had done for him. Might be all kinds of trouble involved that you can't even guess at. Been my experience that associating with dead folks has all kinds of ramifications.”

“It was a pure case of self-defense. Maybe the law there has papers on him,” Newt said. “What about you, Judge? Thought you were the upstanding sort. Law and order every time, right?”

“Boy, you don't know anything about Mexico. It ain't civilized down here,” the judge said. “We get in the wrong situation, and they won't think anything about executing two gringos. No trial or nothing.”

“What if somebody comes along behind us and finds his body?”

“And what about the one we left back in Piedras Negras? We're putting together a pretty good string,” the judge said. “Most down here won't mind us thinning out a few undesirables, but some won't see it that way. Been a lot of years of trouble on the border, and there are those on both sides of it that judge a man on the color of his skin.”

“What do we do with him?”

“Throw him in the lake,” the judge said. “And on second thought, throw his saddle in with him and turn his horse loose. I hate to lose the sale of that horse, but it might cause us more trouble than we'd make off it.”

“Lend a hand—we've still got to load him.”

“He doesn't look too heavy, but I've got a trick back. Goes out on me sometimes if I strain wrong.”

“Come over and help me.” Newt took hold of the dead man's armpits and lifted half of him off the ground.

“If we had a shovel you could bury him.”

“Take hold of his legs.”

“You could put a rope around his heels and drag him over there.”

“Talking won't get it done. Take hold.”

“That's why I went into the bar business and then into the legal business. It was to get away from such labor.”

They wrestled and heaved until they had the body draped facedown over the dead bandit's horse. Newt cut a few short lengths off the riata hanging from the man's saddle horn and secured him as best he could.

“You ought not cut up a good riata like that. We could sell it for a dollar or two should we run across a man that can rope. Cowboys and vaqueros set store by a good rope.”

Newt didn't say anything and mounted back up and led the other horse behind him. He rode out into the edge of the marsh again, deep into the cattails, and drew his knife and cut the body loose. It slid off the saddle and beneath the waist-deep water and muck. Newt undid the cinch and let the bandit's saddle fall, and then rode back to where the judge waited. He pulled the bridle from the bandit's horse and cracked it across the rump with the reins. The horse bolted and ran along the road toward Piedras Negras.

“Somebody might wonder who that horse belonged to,” Newt said.

“It was probably stolen in the first place, and anybody that finds it will only be glad they have a new horse.”

They rode in silence to where the white horse lay far up the road where the judge had shot it. The bullet had taken it under the root of its tail, driving lengthwise into its vitals. Other than a little pool of blood on the ground, there was little evidence as to what had laid the animal low. The horse looked like it could have been struck by lightning, died of a heart attack, or been smitten down by an act of the heavens.

“That's what we down here call the old Texas one-hole shot,” the judge said.

“It was a fine horse.”

“Yeah, shame. Wished I had held a little higher and plucked that Miguelito off his back.”

“What's that I hear?” Newt cocked his head, trying to interpret the faint sound in the distance.

“Church bells,” the judge said. “We're not too far from Zaragoza.”

“And this sweetheart of Cortina's lives there?”

“Her daddy's rancho is about a half-hour ride to the north on the river.” The judge dismounted and began to open the saddlebag pouch on the exposed side of the dead horse.

“You have no shame,” Newt said.

“Spoils of war and the price old Miguelito's paying for thumbing his nose at the law.”

“You ain't the law down here. Might be best for us if you would quit saying that.”

“You don't quit being one thing just because you ride across some river or boundary. The arm of Lady Justice is long and she's blind. Ain't you ever seen the image of her? She wears a bandanna over her eyes so that she can go where she pleases without question.”

“The blindfold is meant to show that justice is impartial.”

“Huh?”

“Fair and square. Treats everyone the same.”

“What do you know about such? Learn that in school?”

“I went to school some, although not much. Had a teacher who taught me that. He was going to teach me to read some Latin next, but spring was on and it was time to put in the crops.”

“Know what you mean. I never went to school more than a month at a time without having to quit and go to work. My pappy put me to work full-time when I was ten, and I never saw a schoolhouse again.”

“Get on your horse. Maybe we can get some breakfast in Zaragoza.”

“Could be those pictures of Lady Justice holding up her scales with that bandanna over her eyes ain't like that teacher of yours thought,” the judge said. “Maybe she was covering her face and about to rob a train.”

“Are you going to stand around all day blabbing, or are you going to get on your horse?”

“This scholarly thinking has my bowels upset,” the judge said. “Ride up the road a piece. My guts won't work right if I think you're watching me.”

Newt rode off about fifty yards while the judge went behind a clump of cactus. He was there a long time, and Newt grew tired of waiting.

“Oh Lord,” the judge said.

From the sound of it, Newt guessed that the judge had got himself a sticker from a cactus.

“Help me,” the judge called out.

“What's the matter?” Newt reined his horse around and walked it nearer where the judge was.

The judge came out of the cactus clump with his pants around his ankles and the trapdoor of his long underwear down. He was holding his left hand cradled in the other.

“You snakebit?” Newt asked.

“No, but I'm poisoned.”

Newt rode closer but he couldn't tell anything about the judge's hand, because the judge wouldn't let go of it and was wobbling in circles. He finally got tangled up in his pants and fell down. He had risen to a sitting position by the time Newt dismounted.

“I'll be lucky if I ain't dead before noon,” the judge said.

“Let me see that hand.”

The judge grimaced and let go of it and held it up for Newt to examine. “Scorpion got me.”

Indeed, the judge's hand was already swelling, mostly at the base of his thumb, and his skin was red with inflammation.

“Little scorpion did that?”

“Little? I bet it's one of those big black ones,” the judge said. “Oh Lord. I saw a man over in Sonora once when I was young. They got those big black ones there. One of them got in his bedroll and stung him on the nutsack. His balls turned as black as an ace of spades. There were several of us and we were discussing amputation, but it never got to that. The poison had done gone too far. It settled in his neck and choked him to where he couldn't breathe.”

“Well, you're bit on the hand. Maybe it won't hit you so hard.”

“That man was dead within an hour of the time he was stung. Go over there and see if you can find it. See if it's one of those big black ones.”

Newt dropped his rein and went where the judge had been. Apparently, the judge was stung before he had time to do his business, but Newt did find where the ground was scuffed where the judge had squatted. He brushed a dead stick around in the rocky ground, but found nothing.

“Did you find it?” the judge asked when Newt came back. “Tell me it wasn't one of those black ones. They get longer than your finger. Got a stinger on them the size of a roofing tack.”

“How do you know it was a scorpion if you didn't see it?”

“I got a glimpse of it. I think it was black.”

“Maybe they don't have the black ones here. Could have been a regular brown little scorpion. Never heard of anybody dying from one of them. It will sting some, but should go away after a while.”

“Oh, I don't think so. Felt like a knife going in me; like my hand was on fire,” the judge said. “I don't want to lose my hand. Old Billy Bartholemew—he was a prospector I once knew out in Arizona—he got bit by a Gila monster. They got mouths so nasty they're pure poison. Billy's whole hand rotted off by the time he wandered back to where people lived.”

“You're jumping the gun a little. We're talking about scorpions here.”

“You don't care because it isn't your hand. I've had this hand a long time and grown partial to it.”

The judge was sweating profusely. Newt didn't know if it was because of the scorpion's poison or because the judge's hat had fallen off and he was sitting in the sun. The judge put the heel of his hand to his mouth and sucked on it and then spat. He repeated the procedure several times.

“You getting anything out? I've heard of that for snakebites.”

“I can't tell.”

“Put a chaw of tobacco on it and that will draw the heat out.”

“Would you chew some up for me?” The judge jerked his chin down at his vest pocket.

Newt squatted and found the judge's little square of plug tobacco and tore a chunk off it with his jaw teeth. He wasn't a chewer, and the stuff tasted like tar. He fought off the urge to gag, and as soon as it was moistened a little he took it from his mouth and placed it on the heel of the judge's thumb.

“Hold that there and get up.”

“I'm feeling faint. Things are spinning.”

“You'll die of heatstroke if you don't put your hat back on and get out of the sun.”

The judge got to his feet with a groan and struggled with the seat of his drawers and tugged his pants up one-handed. He held the other hand gingerly up to the sun as if it were a thing brittle and delicate or some kind of offering of submission.