Streets of Laredo: A Novel (15 page)

"I'm told the buzzards swarmed on that train like big flies," Goodnight said. "The Garza boy wasn't known at the time, but it sounds like him, to me. Not too many people would ride off and leave seven hundred sheep to die."

"Seven hundred and twelve," Call said.

"Well, I wasn't there to count, so I don't know why they think they know that," Goodnight said. He was often annoyed by Woodrow Call's pedantry, when it came to matters of that sort.

"I expect the railroad knew beforehand--that's probably how they got the figure," Call said.

"Then I doubt it was accurate," Goodnight said. "I never met a railroad man who could count animals on the hoof, particularly sheep." "Sheep all look alike," Call said.

"That ain't my point," Goodnight said.

"An animal's an animal. The problem is, most people can't count accurately. I never met a railroad man who could count the legs of a three-legged cat." The more Goodnight thought about human incapacity, of which he had witnessed a great deal, the more he warmed to his subject.

"I can't say that it's just railroad men," he said. "People can't count animals. I am one of the few that can." "What's the most you ever counted in one count?" Call asked. The man's irascibility had always put him off slightly, though he knew that he himself had a reputation for being a fair rival to Goodnight, in that area.

"Eleven thousand eight hundred and fourteen cattle," Goodnight said, without hesitation.

"That was four herds. I counted them into a holding pasture in Pueblo, Colorado, the last time I made the trip. It should have been eleven thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. We lost thirty-four head, or rather, Bill Starr did.

I entrusted him with the second herd, which was a mistake. I like Bill, but he was deficient in a sense, and he still is." "Those sheep would have been hell to count, once they burst," Call said.

Goodnight had driven a wagon into Clarendon, to bring back some groceries and a few posthole diggers, and Call, riding a horse that in Goodnight's opinion, was beneath his standards, fell in with him on the return trip.

Joey Garza had just robbed his third train, killing five people, all of them white. But Goodnight was not thinking of the young killer on the border. He was still thinking about human incapacity.

"Do you think a man can acquire sense, or would he have to be born with it?" he asked Call.

"Sense?" Call asked. "Cow sense, or weather sense, or what kind?" "I thought I was asking the questions," Goodnight said. "You're known to be direct--just be direct.

Are you born with sense or do you acquire it, a little at a time?" "I didn't know much when I was twenty," Call replied. "I believe I make better decisions now." "I thought your best decision was to take that herd to Montana," Goodnight said. "It was bold, because the Indians weren't whipped. They got your partner and they might have got you. But it was a good decision, anyway. Montana was there waiting.

It needed someone to come and put a herd in it." Call said nothing. The man was tactless, to bring up Montana. Goodnight and virtually every adult in the West, if they were interested in the cattle trade, knew what a failure his Montana venture had been.

"It might have been smart if I had known how to run a ranch," Call said, finally. "I didn't. Gus was able. He could run pretty much anything. But he died before we got started. The whole venture was a total failure." "I don't see it that way," Goodnight said.

"Well, it wasn't your ranch," Call pointed out.

"No, it wasn't my ranch, but I hate to see you thinking like a banker," Goodnight said.

"From a banker's point of view, all my ventures have been failures, including this one I'm venturing now, this Palo Duro ranch. The lawyers will take it away from me, before I'm dead. Lawyers and bankers are like shit beetles. They'll finally carry off everything I've built up, like they carried off your ranch up above the Yellowstone.

"I would have liked to see the Yellowstone-- I've heard it's mighty fine country, up there," he added. "If I could get around like I used to, I'd ride up to the Yellowstone, just to be able to say I'd seen it." "You ought to go--it is fine country," Call said.

Goodnight rode in silence for several miles. He had to pop his little team of mules hard with the reins to get them to pull the wagon up the bank once they forded Cow Creek.

"I'm no student of the ledger sheets," he said, a little angrily, once they left Cow Creek behind.

Call found Goodnight's way of talking hard to follow. They hadn't been talking of banks or ledger sheets. What did the man mean?

"Bankers live by ledger sheets," Goodnight informed him. "They decide you're a failure if your balance hits zero, or if you can't pay your note. You're a damn fool for thinking like a banker." "I don't think like a banker," Call assured him. "I don't even have a bank account." "It was a bold thing, driving that herd to the Yellowstone," Goodnight said. "You went right through the Sioux and the Cheyenne. It was a bold thing.

You ought not to let the bankers tell you you're a failure because you went broke. I've been broke nine times in my life, and I may be broke again, before I'm through. But I've never been lost, day or night, rain or shine, and I ain't a failure." "I wonder if Roy Bean knows anything about the Garza boy?" Call asked.

"He might," Goodnight said. "He's got a good eye for thieves, that's because he's tight.

Roy Bean would hang a man over a fart, if he didn't like the smell." Call found the conversation tiring. He had only fallen in with Goodnight to be sociable; after all, he was the man's guest. He trotted ahead for a bit, thinking about the seven hundred and twelve dead sheep. He had seen the bones of the Comanche horse herd, the one Colonel MacKenzie had destroyed. But those were just bones, cleaned by the winds and the sun. Seven hundred dead sheep crammed into boxcars was a different story.

"If I was the railroad I expect I'd just burn those boxcars," he said, when he dropped back even with Goodnight.

"Would you accompany me, if I decide to make that trip to the Yellowstone?" Goodnight asked, as they rode up to his barn.

"No, you'll have to find other company, if you go," Call said. "I'd rather be shut of Montana. You can't miss the river, though." "I told you I've never been lost, day or night," Goodnight said. "I can generally locate a river." "I expect so, I don't know why I said it," Call replied. The man was a famous plainsman. Of course he could find the Yellowstone River.

"I am not good at conversation, goodbye," he said, but Goodnight was already unloading the posthole diggers, and didn't answer.

Brookshire knew the minute he walked into the telegraph office in Laredo that there was trouble-- big trouble. No fewer than seven telegrams awaited him, all from Colonel Terry. Two telegrams from Colonel Terry was so unusual that it usually meant war had been declared.

Brookshire had never expected to be unlucky enough to receive seven at one time. And yet it had occurred, in the hot town of Laredo.

"Ain't you gonna open them?" the old telegraph clerk said. His name was Johnny Whitman and he had been a telegraph operator on the border for twenty-nine years.

Never before had he received seven telegrams for one person, only to have that person refuse to open them and share the excitement. Perhaps there was a war. Perhaps troops were on their way from San Antonio with orders to kill all the Mexicans. If that was so, and Johnny Whitman hoped it was, there would be rapid business for a few months.

Brookshire knew the man wanted him to open the telegrams and share the news with him, but he didn't care. Seven telegrams from Colonel Terry could only mean one thing. The Garza boy had struck again, before Captain Call could do his job.

If that was the case, then at least one of the telegrams might be informing him that he was fired.

In that event, he wouldn't have to worry about Colonel Terry's fiery temper anymore, but he would certainly have to worry about Katie's.

She did not like change, Katie. He had a job and she expected him to keep it. News that he was fired would undoubtedly cause her temper to flare up.

It had been nippy in Amarillo. Winter was supposed to be nippy, and Brookshire hadn't minded. Then in San Antonio, which was still in the same state, it had been hot, mighty hot.

He didn't suppose it could get any hotter than it had been in San Antonio, but after a few hours in Laredo, he was forced to admit an error. Laredo, which was in the same state, was hotter still.

Their arrival in Laredo had been unpleasant on other grounds, too. Bolivar had begun to cry and wail. When they crossed the river into Nuevo Laredo, Bolivar knew that the Captain was about to leave him.

"No, [email protected], no!" he pleaded. "I want to go. I can ride and shoot." "Yes, and you have shot," Call reminded him.

"You shot our best mule, and for no reason." Bolivar had a vague memory of shooting a mule. He had shot it in the stomach with a big gun. Now, though, he couldn't remember why.

Perhaps the mule had tried to bite him; mules were known to bite.

"I thought I was shooting the devil," Bolivar said, in hopes of convincing the Captain that shooting the mule had been an act prompted by forces stronger than himself.

"No, you thought it was an Indian," Call said. "You have to stay here, Bol--you might get hurt if I take you. I'll be back for you when I head home." Soon he was handing money to a small, tired-looking Mexican woman who was not unlike the woman he had given money to in San Antonio. Brookshire decided the old man must have been a superlative cook, for the Captain to keep supporting him all these years.

Bolivar didn't appreciate the fact that the Captain had another decent family to place him with, though. He wanted to ride the river with the Captain, to ride and shoot, kill or be killed. At the thought that he would have to stay with the woman and the children again, he began to weep, and he was still weeping when the Captain and Brookshire rode off.

"Be quiet, you're old, you need to rest," Juanita said. She was not happy to see the old man. He caused many problems. But she needed the money. He was not a bad old man; just noisy, and sometimes a little violent to himself.

Brookshire stumbled out of the telegraph office, pale with shock, and took the seven telegrams to Captain Call, who was talking with the local sheriff, a young man named Jekyll, who sported a walrus mustache. Call was trying to find out the local gossip about the Garza boy.

To the surprise of both Call and the sheriff, Brookshire simply thrust the seven telegrams into Call's hands.

"Would you read them, please? I'm too worried," he said.

Call led Brookshire a little distance down the road, to a shade tree, before opening the first of the telegrams. He knew Sheriff Jekyll was dead curious about the information they contained, but he preferred to take the cautious, rather than the polite, approach. The less information got spread around, the better.

"Well, it's bad," Call said, when he had read all seven telegrams. "He's done it again, and somebody else has started doing it too." He gave Brookshire the telegrams, and Brookshire read them quickly. Three more trains had been struck.

"Three! Three, my God!" Brookshire exclaimed. Even one more train robbery would have been a calamity, but three amounted almost to a world catastrophe. News that an earthquake had leveled New York City could not have been more unwelcome.

"I don't see anything about a second robber --where's that?" Brookshire asked.

"The telegrams don't say it--it's the distances that say it," Call said. "According to this, a train was robbed in Van Horn one afternoon and another in Deming, New Mexico, the next morning. Nobody's swift enough to cover that distance in twelve hours." Call methodically arranged the telegrams in order and read Brookshire the totals: two crew and three passengers killed near Van Horn, little money taken; two crew and two passengers killed near Falfurrias, little money taken; and three crew and four passengers killed near Deming, another military payroll lost.

"O Lord, spare us," Brookshire said.

"That's another payroll lost--the army will be mad, for sure." "It's the passengers the Lord should have spared," Call said. "That's sixteen lives lost, in a little over a week, Mr. Brookshire. I fought Indians for fifteen years on the frontier and I lost six men. This is not a robber we're after, it's a killer--or two killers, it looks like now." "If there's two robbers, or two killers, who's the other one?" Brookshire asked.

"I don't know," Call said.

"Well, one of them's a robber, too," Brookshire said. "He's taken three payrolls and lots of trinkets." "Yes, he takes the money," Call said.

"Or they take the money, because it's there. But the killings worry me more. How many were killed before I took this job?" Brookshire tried to think. Three robberies had occurred before he left New York; another occurred while he was in Chicago. The one with the sheep wasn't on Colonel Terry's railroad, so Brookshire didn't count it, though he supposed he ought to count the dead men. It seemed to him that there had been three or four deaths each time, but he wasn't sure. Six had died on the sheep train, and now there were another sixteen dead. The count was in the thirties somewhere, so there was no denying it was a startling death toll. His regiment had only lost forty men, during the entire Civil War. Of course, his regiment had not been in the thickest of the action; still, the War had been carnage from start to finish and it was a shock to realize that one Mexican boy, in the course of a few months, had taken more lives than his regiment had lost in the War.