The Man from Stone Creek

Mungo was no fool. He knew that if Undine wanted to go to San Francisco, or anywhere else, she’d find a way to do it, with or without him. He’d never dared to ask how she’d wound up in Phoenix, but he was pretty sure it had to do with some man. “I’ll think about it,” he said in a low voice, but it felt as if the words had been torn out of him, like a stubborn stump wrenched from the ground by a team of mules.

She brightened, pretty as a pansy after a summer rain. “Good,” she whispered. “That’s good.”

* * *

SAM SADDLED the nameless horse an hour after sunset, consulted the written instructions the major had given him before he’d left Stone Creek, even though he knew them by heart. Across the river, on the Mexican side, he was to find a certain cantina, order a drink and wait. He’d be told where to go from there, to meet up with Vierra.

The river was wide, shallow and washed with starlight. He made the crossing without getting his pant legs wet above the knee, though his boots filled to overflowing.

On the far bank, in a copse of whispering cottonwoods, he dismounted, emptied the boots and pulled them back on. He’d have to sleep in them tonight; if he took them off, he’d never get them on again. Best to let them dry to the contours of his feet, the way they had a hundred times before.

Sam swung back up into the saddle, headed slowly for the little cluster of lights where the trees gave way to open ground, and the village of Refugio. Here the buildings were mostly adobe, with a few teetering wooden shacks interspersed, and even though he probably could have hurled a stone back across the border, the two places were as different as Santa Fe and Boston.

He found the cantina easily, drawn by the sound of a guitar, and left the horse standing in the dooryard, among the burros and other mounts already there, nibbling on patches of grass. Two of the horses, he noticed, bore the distinctive Donagher brand, a D with a bar through it. Major Blackstone had sketched it for him, on the margin of his orders.

The lintel over the cantina door was low and Sam ducked his head as he entered. The clientele was mostly Mexican, as were the bartender and the girl serving drinks, but the cowboys standing at the bar were outsiders, like him. The pair of them turned their heads as Sam took a place at an empty table, their eyes narrowed with interest.

He nodded a greeting, wondering if the men were Mungo Donagher’s sons, or simply rode for his outfit. A spread that size required a lot of range help.

The girl took her time traipsing over to him through the smoky gloom. She wore a white dress, set off her smooth brown shoulders, and her dark hair was wound into a tight knot at the back of her head. She smiled, with a virgin’s shyness, and asked in Spanish what his pleasure would be.

Sam was briefly reminded of Bird, selling herself as well as liquor across the river at Oralee Pringle’s saloon. His stomach soured around the light supper he’d made for himself, but he responded to the smile as best he could. He asked for whiskey, and the girl flounced away to fetch his order.

The pair of riders had turned back to their shared bottle, though Sam suspected they were keeping an eye on him in the long, dingy mirror behind the bar. Both of them wore side arms under their dusty coats, one a right-handed gun, the other a southpaw. He unsnapped the narrow leather strap that kept his own .45 secure in the holster.

The girl came back with his whiskey. Sam paid her and left the drink to sit on the table, untouched. The barmaid lingered, her brown eyes thoughtful and unblinking, and then suddenly plopped herself onto his lap, draping her arms around his neck.

Tentatively, Sam hooked an arm around her slender waist.

She nuzzled his neck, sending shivers through him before nibbling her way up to his ear to whisper, this time in halting English, “Vierra, he will meet you behind the church, beside the grave of Carlos Tiendos, one hour from now. In the meantime—” she tasted his earlobe “—you could come up the stairs with me.”

Sam shifted uncomfortably. He’d gone a while without a woman, so the invitation had its appeal, but a particular storekeeper/postmistress had taken up squatter’s rights in the back of his mind, and that ruined everything. Besides, he needed to keep his thoughts on the task ahead of him, meet up with Vierra and work out a plan.

“They are watching you,” the girl persisted. “Those two Americanos at the bar.”

Sam traced the outward curve of one of her breasts with one finger, so they’d have something to look at. He might as well have been running a hand over a wooden Indian outside a cigar store, for all the excitement he felt. Damn that Maddie Chancelor, anyhow. “Who are they?” he whispered back.

She trembled at his caress, though Sam felt as though the blood in his veins had turned to high-country slush. “Donaghers,” she answered, confirming his suspicions. “Garrett and Landry. They don’t take to strangers, so you must be careful.”

Sam nodded almost imperceptibly. If what Terran had told him about the three eldest Donagher brothers was true, he’d have a run-in with them sooner or later, but this night, he didn’t want to be bothered.

“Come upstairs with me,” the girl reiterated. “They will guess that I am passing a message if you don’t.”

Sam forced a lusty chuckle, for the benefit of the Donaghers and anybody else who might be paying attention. “Lead the way,” he said under his breath.

She bounced to her feet, grabbed his hand and hauled him toward a set of three stone steps, around the far end of the bar. He swatted her lightly on the bottom as they passed the Donaghers and she giggled mischievously.

“My name,” she told him, closing the door of a dark room behind them, “is Rosita.”

Sam stood warily, waiting for his eyes to adjust, taking a measure of the place with all his remaining senses. He’d been led into more than one trap in his life, usually by a pretty woman full of promises, and he was absolutely still until he was sure they were alone.

Rosita raised herself onto her toes, slipped her arms around his neck again and kissed him on the mouth. “We might as well make good use of the time,” she teased in her native language.

Sam laid his hands on either side of her waist and set her gently away from him. Thin moonlight seeped into the room, through a single, narrow window, outlining a narrow cot, a washstand and a simple wooden chest with a candlestick on top.

He crossed to the chest, took a match from his shirt pocket and lit the candle. In the flickering light, he noted the crucifix on the wall above the cot, and wondered about Rosita.

“Is this your room?” he asked.

He must have spoken Spanish, because she understood him readily. She tilted her head to one side, her mouth forming a fetching little pout. “Sí,” she said.

He glanced at the crucifix again. “You bring men here?”

She nodded, took another step toward him.

He held up a hand, halting her progress.

Rosita looked as though he’d slapped her. “I am not pretty to you?” she asked softly, this time in English.

“It isn’t that,” Sam said, and thrust a hand through his hair. He’d left his hat at the table, with his glass of whiskey.

“You do not like women?”

He chuckled. “Oh, I’m right fond of women,” he said.

She tugged at one side of her ruffly bodice, about to pull her dress down.

“Stop,” Sam told her. Then, at her injured expression, he drew a five dollar gold piece from his vest pocket and extended it.

Rosita was clearly confused, and her dark eyes rounded at the gleaming coin resting in his palm, then climbed, questioning, to his face.

“That’s for keeping your clothes on,” he told her gruffly.

She darted forward, snatched the gold piece from his hand and took a couple of hasty steps back, dropping it down the front of her dress. “Nobody ever pay me to keep clothes on,” she marveled. Then, watching him closely, she blinked. “Downstairs...they think we—” Rosita flushed and fell silent.

“Let them think it,” Sam said. Then he leaned down, put one hand on the cot, with its thin, lumpy mattress, and gave it a few quick pushes, so the metal springs creaked. The sound was loud enough to raise speculation downstairs, even over the melancholy strum of the guitar.

Rosita put one hand over her mouth and giggled.

Sam pulled part of his shirttail out and rumpled his hair.

“You have folks around here?” he asked, watching her face. He’d have bet his last pound of coffee beans that she hadn’t seen her sixteenth birthday yet. “Someplace you could go?”

She shook her head.

“How about the padre, over at the church? Maybe he could help.”

“Help?” Rosita echoed, obviously puzzled.

Sam sighed. “Never mind,” he said. He consulted his watch. He was supposed to meet Vierra in twenty minutes. “This church you told me about—where is it?”

Rosita went to the window to point the place out, and Sam stood behind her. The adobe bell tower was clearly visible, even in the starlight. He could get there on foot, in plenty of time.

He was turning to go when Rosita caught hold of his arm. “Vierra,” she said in an urgent whisper. “Do not trust him too much.”

Sam cupped Rosita’s small, earnest face with one hand. “Thanks,” he told her, and headed for the door.

She followed him down the stone steps and he made a point of tucking his shirttail back in as soon as he was visible to the patrons of the cantina. He smoothed his hair, crossed to the table and reclaimed his hat. As an afterthought, he downed the whiskey, and it burned its way to his stomach.

He knew the Donaghers would follow, and as soon as he got outside, he ducked around the corner of the cantina, into the deep shadows, instead of heading for his horse.

Sure enough, Mungo’s sons came outside a moment later.

“Where’d he go?” one of them asked the other.

“Maybe the outhouse,” the other replied.

Sam waited. If they bothered his horse, he’d have to deal with them, but they were either drunk or just plain stupid, maybe both, and headed for the privy at the far side of the dooryard.

He watched as one of them slammed at the outhouse wall with the butt of his gun and bellowed, “You in there, mister?”

The second brother tried the door, pulling on the wire hook outside, and it swung open with a squeal of rusted hinges.

“Hey!” the first brother yelled, putting his head through the opening.

Sam eased out of his hiding place.

Both the Donaghers stepped into the outhouse.

Sam shut the door on them and fastened the sturdy wire hook around the twisted nail so they’d be a while getting out again.

A roar sounded from inside and the whole privy rocked on the hard-packed dirt. Sam grinned, mounted his horse and rode for the church to meet Vierra.

He could still hear the Donagher brothers yelling when he got where he was going. The graveyard was enclosed behind a high rock wall, and there was no gate in evidence, so he stood in the saddle and vaulted over, landing on his feet.

He took a moment to assess his surroundings, as he had in Rosita’s room over the cantina, and spotted the red glow of Vierra’s cheroot about a hundred yards away, beneath a towering cottonwood.

He approached, one hand resting on the handle of his Colt, just in case.

Vierra’s grin flashed white and he solidified from a shadow to a man, ground out the cheroot with the toe of one boot. “There is some trouble at the cantina?” he asked, inclining his head in that direction. The sound of splintering wood, mingled with bellowed curses, swelled in the otherwise peaceful night.

Good thing I didn’t leave my horse behind, Sam thought. They might have shot him out of pure spite.

He shrugged. “Just a couple of cowpokes breaking out of the privy,” he said. “I reckon they would either have jumped me or followed me here, if I hadn’t corralled them for a few minutes.”

Vierra laughed. “The Donaghers,” he said.

Sam nodded, took another look around. It was a typical cemetery, full of stone monuments and crude wooden crosses. He recalled the crucifix on Rosita’s wall, and it sobered him. “What do you have to tell me here that you couldn’t have said last night in Haven?” he asked.

Vierra reached into his vest and produced a thick fold of papers. “These are the places where the banditos have struck on this side of the border.” He crouched, spreading a large hand-drawn map on the ground, and Sam joined him to have a look. “Here, at Rancho Los Cruces, “ Vierra said, placing a gloved fingertip on the spot, “they stole some two hundred head of cattle and left four vaqueros dead. Here, in the canyon, they robbed a train.”

Sam listened intently, committing the map to memory, just in case Vierra wasn’t inclined to part with it.

“They used dynamite to cause an avalanche,” Vierra explained, lingering at the place marked as Reoso Canyon. “The train, of course, was forced to stop. They took a shipment of gold, and the wife and young daughter of a patron were captured, as well. The wife was found later—” Vierra stopped, and his throat worked. “She had been raped and dragged to death behind a horse. There has been no word of the girl.”

“Christ,” Sam rasped, closing his eyes for a moment.

Vierra was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was flat. “I was told that you would give me a map corresponding to this one. Showing all the places this gang has struck on your side of the border.”

Sam nodded, reached into the inside pocket of his coat and handed over a careful copy of the drawing the major had given him. “Except for the woman and the girl,” he said as Vierra unfolded the paper to examine it in a shaft of moonlight, “it’s a version of what you just showed me. Rustling. Train robberies. They cleaned out a couple of banks, too, and killed a freight wagon driver.”

“Our superiors,” Vierra observed, his gaze fixed on Sam’s map, “they believe we are dealing with the same band of men. Do you know why?”

Sam knew it wasn’t a question. It was a prompt. “Yes,” he said after a moment of hesitation. “They leave a mark.”

Vierra folded Sam’s map carefully and tucked it away inside his vest. “A stake, driven into the ground, always with a bit of blood-soaked cloth attached.”

Bile rose in the back of Sam’s throat. He’d seen the signature several times, and just the recollection of it turned his stomach. He nodded, took another moment before he spoke. “I suppose you’ve considered that it might be the Donaghers,” he said. That was Major Blackstone’s theory, and, since his conversation with Terran Chancelor that afternoon, regarding the Debney shooting, the possibility had stuck in his mind like a burr.

A muscle bunched in Vierra’s jaw. “Sí,” he said. “But there is no proof.”

Sam waited.

“The patrons who hired me, they want the right men. No mistakes,” Vierra went on. “And I do not have the option, as you do, of shooting them through the heart and bringing them in draped over their saddles. The patrons want them alive. The streets of a certain village, a day or two south of here, will run with their blood.”

A chill trickled down Sam’s spine. He had no love for these murdering bastards, and would just as soon draw on them as take his next breath, but the law was the law. Unless one or more of them forced his hand, they would stand trial, in an American court, their fate decided by a judge and jury. He didn’t give a damn what happened to them after that, but by God, he’d get them that far, whether Vierra got in his way or not. “I guess it all depends on who catches up to them first,” he said moderately.

Both men rose to their feet. Vierra surrendered the map he’d brought with him. “There is a train making its way north in ten days,” he said. “I have told a few people that there will be a fortune in oro federale aboard. We will see if the rumor reaches the right ears.”

Federal gold, Sam reflected. Cheese in a mousetrap.

“And you’ve got a pretty good idea where they’ll try to intercept the train,” he ventured, recalling Vierra’s map in perfect detail. “That railroad trestle downriver from here.”

Vierra smiled. “I am impressed,” he said. “The new schoolmaster has paid attention to the lesson.”

CHAPTER FOUR

“YOU WANT ME to do what?” Maddie gaped at Sam O’Ballivan’s copper bathtub, ensconced squarely in front of the schoolhouse stove. Terran had left the store early that morning, of his own volition, and she’d barely recovered from her brother’s change of heart when back he came, breathless from running all the way.

“Mr. O’Ballivan says to come quick, if you wouldn’t mind!” he’d cried.

Maddie had frowned, concerned. Elias James, the town banker and, for all practical intents and purposes, her employer, since he oversaw Mungo’s investments, expected the mercantile door to be unlocked by nine o’clock sharp, and in the six years she’d been running the general store, she’d never failed to do that. It was now eight forty-five. “Is there some emergency?” she’d asked, already untying the apron strings she’d just tied a moment before.

“He says it’s important,” Terran had insisted.

And here she was, standing in the schoolhouse, staring in consternation at Sam O’Ballivan and the bathtub she’d sold him herself.

“I want you,” Sam repeated patiently, “to show Violet Perkins how to take a bath.”

Maddie knew Violet, of course, and had sympathy for her. The poor child hung around the store sometimes, when school was out, hoping for a hard-boiled egg from the crock next to the counter, or a piece of penny candy. She mooned over the few ready-made dresses Maddie carried—most women sewed their children’s garments at home, as well as their own—and huddled by the stove for hours when it was cold or rainy outside. Maddie often indulged her with a plate of leftovers from her own larder at the rear of the store, pretending the food would go to waste if Violet didn’t eat it.

“Here?” she asked, noting that Sam had set out the bar of French-milled soap and the towel he’d purchased with the bathtub. “In the schoolhouse?”

“What better place?” Sam reasoned. He’d been sitting behind his desk, wearing spectacles and poring over a thick volume when she burst in. At Maddie’s appearance, he’d set aside the glasses and stood. “A school is a place to learn, isn’t it? And Violet needs to know how to take a bath.”

Flummoxed, Maddie spread her hands. “What about the other students?” she asked. “You can’t expect the child to undress in front of the boys—”

Sam smiled. “Of course not. The girls can stay—I suspect some of them could do with a demonstration. I’ll take the boys down to the river for their lesson.” He held up the cake of yellow soap from yesterday’s marketing. “I’ve noticed that Violet is generally the first to raise her hand. Let her think she’s volunteering.”

Maddie glanced at the schoolhouse clock, torn. It was nine o’clock, straight-up, and the mercantile was still closed. At that very moment Mr. James was probably looking out his office window, the bank being kitty-corner from the store, wondering why the customers couldn’t get in to buy things and whipping up a temper because of it.

“Why me?” she asked.

Sam smiled again. “You’re the only woman I know in Haven besides Bird of Paradise over at the Rattlesnake Saloon. I don’t guess it would be fitting to bring her in to teach bathing, though she’d probably agree if I asked her.”

Maddie sniffed. “It certainly wouldn’t be fitting,” she said, wondering how Sam O’Ballivan had come to make the woman’s acquaintance. Damned if she’d ask him, even if her life depended on it. She approached the tub and peered inside, already unfastening her cuff buttons to roll up her sleeves. “We will need water, Mr. O’Ballivan.”

“I’ve got some heating in the back room,” he said. “No sense in lugging it in here and pouring it into the tub if you weren’t going to agree.”

She sighed. “What about the store?”

“Well, I figured, as the owner, you could—”

Maddie flushed. “I am not the owner. I manage it for someone else, and I am accountable to Mr. James, at the bank, who serves as trustee.”

Sam frowned. “Oh,” he said.

“Yes,” Maddie confirmed. “Oh. By now, there are probably people standing three-deep on the sidewalk, complaining because they can’t get in to buy salt and tobacco and kitchen matches.”

Sam brightened. “I think I have a solution,” he said. “I’ll take the boys to the river another day. In the meantime, they can learn how a mercantile operates. We’ll make a morning of it.”

“You intend to take over my store?” Maddie asked, affronted. “Do you think it’s so easy that any idiot can do it?”

The schoolmaster smiled. “I don’t regard myself as an idiot, as a general rule. How hard can it be, filling flour bags and measuring cloth off a bolt?”

Maddie came to an instant simmer, but before she could tell the man what she thought of his blithe and patently arrogant assumption that keeping a thriving mercantile was something he could do one-handed, the pupils began to straggle in. She swallowed her outrage and stood as circumspectly as she could, letting her gaze bore into Sam O’Ballivan like a pointy stick.

When everyone was settled in their seats, Sam announced his plan. The boys would help him tend the mercantile, the girls would remain at the schoolhouse for a “hygiene” lesson.

The boys cheered and stomped their feet, and rushed for the door at an offhand signal from Sam. The girls sat, wide-eyed, waiting for enlightenment. Maddie would have bet not a one of them could have defined the word hygiene, but they had noticed the bathtub. They were all agog at the spectacle.

“Miss Chancelor will give the demonstration,” Sam went on, looking worriedly from face to face. “But we’ll need a volunteer to get into the tub.”

Sure enough, Violet’s hand shot up. “I’ll do it, Mr. SOB,” she cried.

“Mr. O’Ballivan,” Sam countered easily. “That’s good, Violet. I appreciate your willingness to take the initiative.”

Violet beamed. “Can I go to the privy first?”

The other girls giggled and Sam silenced them with a ponderous sweep of his eyes.

“Yes,” he said. “You do that.”

While Violet was gone to the privy, he brought in four buckets of hot water and emptied them into the tub. The remaining girls watched, barely able to suppress their amusement.

When he’d set aside the last bucket, Sam turned to address them. “If even one of you makes fun of Violet,” he said, “you’ll find yourself writing ‘I will not bully smaller children’ one hundred times on the blackboard. Is that clear to everyone?”

The girls nodded, subdued.

Sam dusted his hands together. “Good,” he said, and turned to Maddie. “Now, Miss Chancelor, if I might have the key to the mercantile—”

She surrendered it, slapping it down into his palm with a little more force than strictly necessary.

“Thank you,” he said, tossing the large brass key once and catching it with an aplomb that made Maddie grit her teeth.

And so it was that Maddie came to illustrate the finer points of taking a bath, using Violet Perkins as a model.

* * *

MADDIE HAD BEEN RIGHT, Sam thought as he opened the mercantile for the day’s commerce. There were eight women waiting on the sidewalk, shopping baskets in hand, tapping their toes in impatience. He greeted them with a nod and made his crew of boys wait until the ladies had swept inside.

It was the contrary nature of folks, he reckoned, that on this particular morning, everybody in town wanted to get their marketing done. Had Maddie followed her usual routine, there most likely wouldn’t have been so much urgency.

He set the boys to sweeping and dusting canned goods while the female population of Haven made their various selections.

“Where,” demanded a narrow-faced old biddy with hooded, hawklike eyes and a nose to match, “is Maddie?”