The Quantro Story (5 page)

On the fourth morning when he woke in the bunk, shivering, the land was still. The howling, screaming wind had dropped in the night leaving a vacuum of tranquility. He leapt from the bunk and cajoled the handful of tinder to catch fire then added more fuel until there was enough heat to warm up the coffee-pot. Outside, the leaden sky had temporarily cleared, and the day held that hard brightness of winter. The sun was a pale imitation of the huge torch that had given life to the crops of the summer, but its rays were reflected dazzlingly from the pure white shroud of snow.

At noon when Quantro ventured out of the cabin to whistle the buckskin back from its foraging Quantro saw the rider. He quickly stepped back inside for the Winchester, and by the time the stranger had reached within a hundred yards of his refuge, Quantro was ready to welcome him with the leveled Winchester. The cowboy looked innocent enough, and he explained he had weathered the blizzard in a shallow cave he had shared with the horse. He fondly patted the animal's neck and added that but for the heat of the horse's body, he would certainly be dead. As he talked, Quantro ran his eyes over the stranger. He wore the clothes of a working cowhand, a heavy winter coat and shotgun chaps that had seen much use. He said his name was Tom Galloway, and that he had wandered up from Mexico, headed to work for some folks he knew in Montana.

Quantro liked him immediately. He seemed openly honest, much the same as the hands that had worked for Quantro's own father. Lowering the rifle, he invited Tom Galloway into the cabin and fed him on deer stew and coffee. As he ate, his new companion talked, and Quantro was quick to realize his own knowledge of horses and cattle and land was minimal compared to Tom's, and he listened with open ears, storing the information for future reference.

Each of the two men saw much of themselves in the other and soon became firm friends. The days stretched into weeks.

Sometimes the snow storms drove them indoors, but the rough candles that Quantro had made from deer fat provided flickering light as he listened to Tom's seemingly bottomless well of stories. He told of Mexico; the
señoritas
, the
cantinas
, the Apache and the
Vaqueros
, and of Texas and Arizona. He spoke of his friends in Montana and of the unbelievably bitter winters of Wyoming. There seemed to be nowhere he hadn't been, or nothing he hadn't seen. Quantro listened, fascinated, liking this quiet man for what he was. He may not have been one of the rough and tough pioneers or a reckless Indian fighter, but Quantro envied him his experiences and the places he told of, places that had only ever been names to him. One day he would see them all, and remember Tom Galloway, his twinkling eyes reflecting the dancing flames of the fire as he recalled some long lost nubile
senorita
who had stolen his heart, and most likely his bankroll.

When the weather allowed, they hunted or exercised the horses, but they always returned to the cabin by nightfall. The howling of the hungry packs of timber wolves saw to that. In the dim, overcast days, when their evening hunts had yielded little, the wolves took to running in the afternoon, and their tracks were always evident each morning around the cabin. Quantro and Tom saw many tracks that winter; grizzly, elk, rabbit and fox, and always the wolves. They even found Indian tracks one morning, but of the Indians themselves they saw no trace.

Soon spring brightened the sky and winter's stretching hold on the land began to shrivel until she hung on barely by her fingernails, a finger of snow stubbornly clinging to a high ridge or laying unwarmed in a sheltered arroyo.

Their luck had been good. Their hunting had rewarded them with an excellent diet, and the horses too, were fit. It was time to go. Tom headed north to his friends in Montana and Quantro turned the buckskin's head south, his mind once more set on seeking out Zeb Cole, the murdering half-breed.

He followed the high trails that ran through the line of the Colorado Mountains, down into New Mexico Territory, past Wheeler and Rincon peaks. Then he turned west to meet the waters of the Rio Grande north of Santa Fe, and followed the river southwards before he turned west again, skirting Mount Taylor.

He finally tied the buckskin to the hitching rail outside the Maybelle Saloon on the main street of Grants. Inside, he swilled down his first beer, ridding his throat of the trail dust, and listened to the Smalltalk of the men lining the bar. He learned nothing of interest, so when the beer was finished he tossed a coin onto the counter and went back out on to the sidewalk. He stood for a moment in the sunshine before he spotted the sheriff's office further down, across the street.

He strolled over and examined the Wanted Flyers tacked up on the board outside, but the face he was looking for was absent. Inside, the sheriff had his feet on the battered desk as he cleaned an old rifle. Several batches of posters were thumb tacked to the wall behind the desk. Quantro nodded at the sheriff and pointed to the clutch of papers. The sheriff gestured for him to help himself. He studied the pictures and the rewards as a matter of course.

What he wanted, he found in the third batch.

A poor drawing, but it was Zeb Cole all right. Wanted for cattle rustling and robbery. A bank job, the sheriff said, it was the bank and Wells Fargo who had put up the reward. Cole and two other men. The reward stood at Two Thousand Dollars. Quantro raised an eyebrow.

Enough to feed him for a long while.

No, Cole hadn't been seen in Grants, but the sheriff had heard of a series of cattle thefts near to the border of the Arizona territory. Could be the same crew, you never knew. He shrugged and went back to cleaning his rifle. Could be at that, Quantro conceded. It was fifty miles to the border. A bath and a nice soft bed wouldn't go amiss. And a good, thick beefsteak. Obliged to the sheriff, he tipped his hat and stuck the offered copy of the flyer into his pocket for future reference.

He checked into the hotel and stabled the buckskin at the livery. Alone in his room he counted through the money left from the bounty on Purdy Dale. Five hundred dollars in notes and a few coins. He smiled, remembering those cold evenings in the winter cabin. Tom had managed to wheedle quite a few dollars out of him during their lengthy poker games.

The bath cost him fifty cents and was worth every penny. A full winter's grime was washed from his skin and the water was almost black with scum when he stepped out into the towel. He slid into clean jeans and a checked shirt, the material alien to his skin after the worn jeans and dirty buckskins he had worn throughout the cold months. His next appointment was in the barber's chair where he lay back and entrusted his face to the care and expertise of the storekeeper's hands. Even so, Quantro kept a watchful eye on the deadly sharp blade of the cut-throat razor as it skimmed through his whiskers. His visit was concluded by having his hair trimmed, but much to the barber's disgust he would not allow him to cut it any shorter than his shoulders.

His mother had been the last person to cut his hair. She had loved to see the sun-streaked, shaggy mop that had given him his name bouncing beneath his Stetson as he rode his horse, or when he tumbled with the hands out in the back yard. The memory of his mother brought back the familiar knife of pain that twisted briefly in his stomach, but he fought it as he let the barber trim his hair a little. He drew the line at Bay Rum.

Quantro stepped out onto the boardwalk and rubbed a tentative hand over his baby-smooth cheeks. Although his clean clothes felt stiff and strange he had to admit he felt good. Leaning against the wall, he gazed up and down the street; horses tethered along the hitching rails, ranchers' wagons in town to pick up supplies, the men and women going about their business. The men were a mixture of cowboys dressed in their working clothes, and the townsfolk, some dressed in store-bought suits. He eyed one or two women, prim in ankle-length frocks and carrying parasols, square-cut necklines hinting at the promise of fullness beneath.

He smiled to himself. His last woman had been before the hard winter up in the mountains. Now he had washed away the stink of his sweat, and spring had come, he was getting to want a woman again. He'd spent too many nights with just his horse for company. As the thought crossed his mind his stomach rumbled loudly.

He laughed aloud and patted his midriff. Trust his body to remind him. He would be no good to any woman without nourishment. Well, a woman would just have to wait. Who was he to argue with his stomach?

The beefsteak almost hung over the edge of the big plate. His knife sliced easily into the tender meat and the juices ran down his chin as he chewed. After months of deer meat and rabbit, the rich taste of the succulent beef hit the spot. He savored every bite, a smile constantly playing across his lips. It was a well contented man who reluctantly pushed away the empty plate and leaned back in his chair to nurse a big cup of black coffee.

“My, anyone'd think you hadn't eaten for a week, the way you ate that. I ain't never seen a man smile so much when he tackled a steak.”

Quantro turned a little in his chair to examine the speaker. She was about twenty five or twenty six, he guessed. A pleasurable smile curved the corners of her mouth and lit up her black eyes with a mischievous sparkle. Her complexion was like some white china his mother had kept in a glass cabinet in the ranch house and only used for best. Thick black hair hung in lustrous curls to her shoulders, beautifully groomed. She was on the small side, trim-waisted and full-hipped, and her neckline boasted a pride of its own. Quantro thought with a little regret it was a shame the cathouses never saw woman flesh like her behind their doors. She was a beauty all right.

She withstood his critical examination of her, but the smile had remained fixed in place, even slightly more cheeky for the approval she read in his eyes.

“Black-eyed woman,” he said, his own mouth curling into a lop-sided grin to match hers, “that was the best beefsteak I ever ate in my life.”

“It makes it worthwhile to stand over a stove when I'm rewarded by a smile like that.”

“Some feller's a lucky man to have you working in his kitchen. With someone that cooks as right well as you do, a man'd be a damn fool ever to look at another woman.”

“Guess my husband was a fool then,” she said, her smile fading. “He took off with some slut a few years back.” She caught the flicker of interest in his eyes and held a hand palm upwards. “No, there's no other man now.” She looked away then the smile came back to her face. “Not that I don't like men, it's just that I've gotten used to living alone and I've found that they just clutter up the house anyway. Always tripping over them.”

Quantro chuckled. “Well, Black-eyed woman, if your cooking's like that all the time, you can trip over me anytime at all. If there's a steak on the menu tomorrow, you can keep one for me. The biggest and the best.” He contemplated the empty plate briefly then looked up and winked. “Us growing boys need real good feeding.” He took some coins from his pocket and laid them on the table. “Anyhow, you'd best take the money and run before I sink my teeth into something else that looks good enough to eat.”

He winked.

She blushed, then laughed and took his money.

***

The Maybelle saloon had filled up with cowhands in town for the evening. Several card games were running at tables and he had to content himself with standing at the bar. A Faro wheel stood at the back of the room, attended by a flashy saloon girl who had already more than enough amorous admirers to handle. He smiled and turned his attention to the bottle and glass that stood on the counter before him. He treated himself to a cigar, his own small cloud of smoke adding to the blue haze that hung beneath the hurricane lamps.

A while later he edged his way into a poker game and spent the next two hours studying cards. He played each hand with care, as was his way, keeping a practiced impassive face as he called and raised. The growing pile of coins on the table before him attested his skill.

The evening wore on and the bottle next to his left hand slowly emptied. Cowhands continually changed places at the table as they went broke, making rueful expressions at the loss of their wages. Their friends just laughed and then took a seat. The chances were that they went broke too. By the time Quantro'd had enough he had lost a few but won most. He dealt his last hand, then placed the deck in the middle of the table.

“That's me out,” he said, sliding his winnings off the edge of the table into his hand. “Say, have they got many girls? I'd like to pay me a visit upstairs.”

“Not a chance,” one of the luckier players replied, “Tonight's pay day, and all the girls'll have queues stretching way along the corridor. Tell you what, Mister, there's a cathouse right along the street. Costs a little more but you won't have to wait for so long. More for the businessmen types, but as long as you pay your way they won't complain.”

“Obliged, friend.” Quantro touched the brim of his Stetson and gave up his chair for the next cowboy who felt lucky.

He pushed his way out through the batwing doors and onto the boardwalk. What the hell, he'd won a few bucks and could afford a more expensive woman. After all, it was only money, and spending was what it was for. There would be enough time to worry about the lack of it when he took out after Zeb Cole tomorrow morning.

After the warm, smoky atmosphere of the saloon, the night was cool and clean, a fresh breeze ruffling the sides of his hair. Looking off to the left he could see where the stores merged into the private houses. All the lights were on in the fifth one along. That could only be the place he was headed.

He grinned and hitched his pants, then set off at an easy gait along the planking. Here and there, a drunken cowhand stumbled in the shadows, and as he crossed an alley a spread-eagled body emitted clear snores, humming in the night air like bursts on a buzz saw. At the end of the raised sidewalk he stepped down on to the ruts of the road, moving past dainty white fences that cordoned the gardens of the private houses. He could see that flowers and bushes had been planted, a contrast to the wild untamed land that bordered the town's limits.