Arroyo de la Muerte Read online

  The older man had sagged down in the chair behind the desk and pulled a sheet of paper out of a drawer. He unfolded the page, set it on the desk, and smoothed it out with his thick hands before turning it toward Yakima. “Read that. Before he died, Julian Barnes dictated this note to Doc Sutton, and signed it.”

  The Kid pulled the note back, frowning up at Yakima. “Can you read?”

  Yakima gave a snort. “When the chips are down I can sound it out.”

  “Doc had to tell me what it said.” The Kid chuckled with self-deprecation.

  Yakima slid the notepaper toward him. There was a single sentence in blue-black ink, in a flowing, college-educated hand. The gawdy cursive was in stark contrast to the bluntness and brevity of the sentence itself:

  “I was killed by Hugh Kosgrove.” It was signed by Julian Barnes in a shaky, spidery ssrawl, the ‘s’ in Barnes’s name badly smeared, as though the dying man had used the last of his strength to sign the note, his hand collapsing at the end.

  “What do you make of it?” the Kid asked, frowning up at Yakima.

  Yakima straightened, shrugged. “None of Kosgrove’s enemies have ever lived very long. But that might just be a dying man tryin’ to take out a blood enemy with his last gasp.”

  “Doc says a dying man’s testament is bond in a court of law.”

  “Yeah, well…” Yakima swung around and headed for the door. “Good luck getting Hugh Kosgrove in a court of law. He stopped at the threshold and glanced back at the Kid. “I got bigger fish to fry with Kosgrove.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “He sicced a couple of bushwhackers on me and Rusty Tull.”

  “Why?”

  “That’s just what I’m gonna ask him when I ride out of here tomorrow mornin’.”

  Yakima went out. Behind him, the Kid rushed over to the door and yelled, “What about this Julian Barnes affair?”

  “Folks know what happens when you mess with Kosgrove,” Yakima said. Smiling, he glanced back at the older man once more. “Besides, it ain’t none of my business. You’re the one with the badge on your vest. It looks right good there, too—if you don’t mind the compliment?”

  The Kid stared down at the badge on his lumpy chest, ran his thumb across it. “I reckon it does, don’t it? Been keepin’ a shine on it.” He looked at Yakima gain, his features grave, troubled. “Sure weighs heavy, though.”

  Yakima heard yelling to the east and saw Galveston Penny hazing a couple more drunks at rifle point toward the jailhouse.

  Yakima glanced up at the Kid again. “It does at that.”

  He swung around and continued walking. He needed a thick steak and a pile of beans then a long night’s sleep. The stable would suffice. He’d saddle Wolf at first light at ride out to powwow with Kosgrove.

  Chapter 17

  Since the supper hour had passed, the Bon Ton Restaurant had several empty tables for Yakima to pick from.

  He chose one in the room’s front corner, opposite the door. He’d made enough enemies that it was always wise to sit with his back to a wall. A corner was even better. This way he had a good view of the entire long, deep room lit by several hanging, sooty oil lamps.

  The Bon Ton was his favorite place in town not only because the food was good but because, despite the name, there was nothing pretentious or expensive about it, which wasn’t something you could say about the Conquistador. The food over there wasn’t bad, but it was nothing compared to what the old Swedish cooks, husband and wife, scraped off the big iron grill in the Bon Ton’s rear kitchen and was served by their two stout and unfriendly daughters, Helga and Linny.

  Yakima’s stomach was growling like a dog with a bone. He was weak with hunger. He hadn’t had more than a few bites in days, not since before his humiliating display with several bottles in the jailhouse, and he felt as empty as a dead man’s boot.

  He ordered from the unsmiling, blue-eyed Lini a giant steak and a plate of beans with four eggs and chili sauce laid over the top, with carrots and tomatoes on the side, and a basket of the Swedes’ grainy brown bread, which was the best bread he’d ever tasted anywhere. Apple cobbler with freshly whipped cream rounded out the deal, and when it all came, he nearly fainted from the enticing fragrances rising with the steam off the off the four heaping platters.

  “Anyt’ing else, nay?” Lini asked, refilling his coffee cup with coal-black coffee then scribbling out the bill and slapping it down on the table.

  “Nay,” Yakima said.

  Lini never made eye contact with him. Yakima suspected she didn’t cotton to stooping to serve a man with Indian blood, even when that man had been the town marshal. Normally, that would get Yakima’s neck in a hump, but since there was something touching in the unattractive and ungainly girl’s shyness, and the food was good, he never got worked up about it.

  Besides, he wouldn’t be strapping on the feed bag in this town much longer. He’d be pulling his picket pin soon, maybe spend the winter a little farther west, around the Arizona-California border, possibly along the sandy shores of the Sea of Cortez.

  Yakima was halfway through his meal, the tender, bloody beef going down like candy, when five men entered the place in a single group. What caught Yakima’s eye about them, through the smoke still lifting from his food, was that they were better dressed than those who usually dipped their snouts in the Bon Ton’s rough-hewn though tasty trough. The problem with good food was that it attracted all kinds, and Yakima had seen unfortunate signs that the Bon Ton was starting to attract three-piece suits now and then, and even a few petticoats and ostrich-plumed picture hats.

  What warranted a second glance at this current bunch, however, was that one of them had a familiar face.

  “Ah, shit,” Yakima grumbled to himself around a mouthful of half-chewed steak and beans.

  John Claire Hopkins saw Yakima about the same time Yakima saw Hopkins, who led the four others, similarly dressed in trailered suits and bowler hats, and wearing trimmed facial hair and gold watch chains, into the humble eatery. Only, Hopkins didn’t look nearly as surprised as Yakima felt about their unexpected meeting in such an unlikely haunt.

  Or…maybe Hopkins had expected to find him here. Yakima had seen a man leave the premises rather quickly after he had taken his seat in the corner. Was the Englishman keeping tabs on him?

  Yakima didn’t know much about the man except that he was English, had a close business relationship with Hugh Kosgrove, had pecuniary ambitions here in Apache Springs, and that he’d set his hat for Julia. Yakima had a feeling he was about to find out more, for the man, after ushering his friends to a table just beyond Yakima’s, down the long room on Yakima’s right, sauntered over to Yakima’s table, dipping his beringed fingers into the shallow pockets of his silk waistcoat which resided behind a midnight black brocade clawhammer coat with wide, silk-faced lapels.

  He stood studying Yakima skeptically for a time, with cool disdain. A blue vein just above his right eyebrow throbbed. It would have been unnoticeable if light from a near, low-hanging lamp, didn’t hit it just right.

  Yakima continued eating, showing the popinjay, who he didn’t much care for, no politeness whatever. He did, however, kick out the chair from the other side of his table and say with a mouthful of the food he was chewing, “Sit down an’ take a load off, amigo.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  Yakima shrugged and continued eating. “Okay, then—out with it. The stench of your toilet water is interfering with the taste of my meal.”

  Cheeks flushing slightly, Hopkins glanced toward his friends, who’d taken a table just beyond the empty table to Yakima’s right. Returning his flinty gaze to Yakima, the dandy said, “Don’t pester Julia again. Leave her alone.”

  “I didn’t realize I was pestering her.”

  “Bringing some young Confederate desert rat into the Conquistador is an embarrassment to her as well as to her father. Having her give him a room and a bath and supper in his bedroom is merely making a mockery
of what she does…and what the Conquistador is all about. The boy is filthy, he smells bad, and he can’t even speak proper English.”

  Yakima stopped eating to look up at the man over a forkful of food he held in front of his mouth. “You done?”

  “No, I’m not done. I want you personally to stop hovering around her, as well. She is too good for you. You know that, or you should know that. Now understand this--I’ve asked her to marry me.”

  Yakima’s heart thumped. He manufactured a stony expression, as if the man’s words hadn’t pierced his thick hide like poison-tipped Apache arrows. “You did, did you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What’d she say?”

  “She said yes, of course.”

  Yakima paused. The food inside him no longer felt as good as it had only a moment before. “I don’t believe you.”

  Hopkins raised his voice for the benefit of his friends sitting nearby. “I don’t care what you believe, Henry. But rest assured, Julia and I will soon be married. And I want you to leave her alone. Understand?”

  “I’m sorry, Hopkins, but I don’t take orders from you. Hell, I don’t even like you. You see—me an’ Julia got us a special relationship.” Yakima’s wolf was on a very short leash now, and he had to suppress the urge to climb up out of his chair and pummel the man just as he’d done to Whitey Ugstead an hour ago. “She likes how I treat her, and I like how she treats me. An’ just as soon as I’m done with this right tasty an’ fillin’ meal, I’m gonna go over there an’ curl her toes for her…just the way she likes ‘em curled. If your room is anywhere near hers, you’d best move. I’m afraid our caterwaulin’ will keep you awake most of the night.”

  Yakima grinned jeeringly then shoved the forkful of food into his mouth and resumed chewing.

  Hopkins’ cheeks turned bright red. He cast a quick, embarrassed glance at his friends, who were looking toward him and Yakima. He closed his hands over the back of the chair before him, squeezing till his knuckles turned white beneath his several rings. “You big, unwashed, uncouth, savage fool.” He’d said the words softly but slowly and in a voice as hard as his eyes. “You don’t really think I would allow that to happen, do you? Now that she’s promised herself to me…?”

  Yakima grinned despite the giant fist squeezing his heart. “We’ll see, I reckon.”

  “Yes.” It was Hopkins turn to grin. “We will see.”

  Shaking his head disdainfully, he turned away, strode over to his friends’ table, and sat down. The group immediately began talking and chuckling in hushed tones. Yakima didn’t look at them though he felt their eyes on him. He continued eating, shoveling the food in as though with relish though he felt little of the pleasure he’d felt before. Now he was just eating because he didn’t want the English popinjay to know how deeply his words had bit him.

  When he was finished, with feigned, exaggerated leisure, he scrubbed his napkin across his mouth, belched loudly, shoved his plate away, donned his hat, and rose from his chair. He belched again, keeping his eyes off Hopkins and his toney friends, and dropped some coins onto the table. He sauntered to the door, letting his spurs rake loudly across the floor, and headed outside. Quickly, he stepped to the right of the door and leaned back against the wall, drawing a deep, slow, calming breath.

  At least, he’d intended the breath to be calming. It did anything but calm him. The world looked a little cockeyed. His well-filled guts ached, as though he’d eaten poison. He drew another breath and then started walking along this dark side-street.

  Well, she’d accepted the limey bastard’s hand in marriage. Why shouldn’t she have? The man had money. He’d keep her living high on the hog. What kind of life could Yakima have given her? The actual answer was probably several steps below the life that Lon Taggart had given her.

  Taggart had been the marshal here before Yakima. In fact, Yakima had tracked and killed Taggart’s killers. Julia had fallen in love with Taggart despite the fact the man had been a lowly public servant. Despite the fact that her father had forbidden her to do so.

  She had a habit of defying her father. Both of those women did though they couldn’t have been much more unalike otherwise. Julia had fallen in love with Yakima—again despite her father’s having forbid their being together.

  Maybe it was high time she listened to the old man. She’d have a better life that way, though whether or not Yakima was going to leave Kosgrove alive tomorrow was a matter he hadn’t yet decided. If the man had sent Booth to that canyon, he was a cold-blooded killer. He might have killed Barnes, as well. Someday, somehow, Kosgrove needed to be stopped.

  After he’d staggered around the north side of town, wandering aimlessly, drunk on the knowledge that Julia was no longer his though he’d doubted she’d ever been his in the first place, and knowing that she would be better off with the limey son-of-a-moneyed-bitch, Hopkins, he recovered his bearings and headed for the livery barn. His blather about going over to the Conquistador and throwing the blocks to Julia had been just that—blather.

  He was done with her, just as she was done with him, and rightfully so.

  He regretted what he’d said to Hopkins. His stupid words, spawned by his typically uncontrolled rage, wouldn’t help her at all. They might even hurt her in Hopkins’s eyes though even the stupid limey sonofabitch likely knew he couldn’t do any better than Julia Kosgrove. What man could? Still, waving her and Yakima’s sex life in front of the man had been stupid and cruel and he shouldn’t have done it.

  What he really needed was to get his raggedy ass out of here. It had been time for a while, and now it was really time. All he could do here was lay waist to the place, hurt the woman he loved. Hurt her sister, too, whom he didn’t love. At least, not in the same way he loved Julia.

  What he loved about Emma was her wildness. In that way, she reminded him of Faith. But she wasn’t Faith. While Emma enjoyed making love with Yakima, and only God knew how much he’d enjoyed making love with her, she’d come between him and the real thing—Julia.

  Between him and real love.

  But, then, he’d let her do it. He’d let her use him as a pawn against her sister with whom she’d been in competition with for most of her life. The really crazy thing was that Yakima knew that deep down the sisters actually loved each other. He’d gotten in their way.

  What a complicated mess!

  But so much of life was, he’d come to realize…

  That said, the best thing he could do for Julia and for Emma was to haul his freight out of Apache Springs once and for all, and he would do that just as soon as he talked to Kosgrove about that bushwhacking in the canyon. He couldn’t let that go. He had to know why Kosgrove had sent those bushwhackers after him. Why he’d killed the Bundrens, not that they were any great loss.

  Also, he wanted to know Kosgrove’s intentions regarding the treasure trove in the church. There probably wasn’t much he could do about them, but he had to know before he left.

  He made his way to the livery barn, entering through the man-door beside the big stock doors, and stumbled around the semi-darkness inside, looking for the stable in which Wolf had been housed. He was glad the cranky liveryman, Gramps Dawson, wasn’t around. He was likely off getting drunk with the rest of Apache Springs.

  In a few minutes, he was sacked out in the loft. He was sleeping the sleep of the dead until he was awake and he heard the click of a gun being cocked. It was his own thumb cocking his own gun as he aimed it straight out before him.

  He’d heard something.

  It came again—a wooden creak and a soft thud. Someone was climbing the loft ladder. Yakima squeezed the revolver’s neck as he slid the gun to his right.

  A woman’s soft voice pitched with intimacy. “Yakima?”

  Yakima depressed the Colt’s hammer. “Ah, hell.”

  Chapter 18

  “Go away, Julia. I’m dead-dog tired.”

  The wooden creaks continued. He saw her shadow rise from the ladder’s hole to his r
ight, along the base of the barn’s south wall.

  “How in the hell did you find me?” he asked as she moved slowly over to where he’d laid out his soogan in a pile of fresh hay.

  “It wasn’t too hard. You weren’t in your room and you weren’t over at the jail office. You’d given up your badge, so I figured you weren’t working. I knew you’d be here.”

  Somehow, she must have learned that when he couldn’t sleep in his room at the Conquistador, he often came out here to sleep in the loft. He always slept better in the silence of a big barn, with the animals and the smells of hay and leather and wool and the musky aroma of the horses themselves.

  He rose up to lean on an elbow. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  She stood before him, her lithe figure wrapped in a shawl against the evening’s chill. Her curvy female figure was mostly a silhouette, but the starlight angling through the two loft windows, one each end of the barn, played in her pinned up hair.

  “I don’t have any idea.”

  “Hopkins said he popped the question.”

  “He did.”

  “He said you’d accepted.”

  “I did.”

  “So…what’re you doin’ here?”

  “Like I said, I have no idea.” She paused. Her heard her draw a breath then swallow. “All I know that under this dress, I’m not wearing a damn thing.”

  She dropped the shawl. She reached down and pulled the simple house dress up and over her head. She let it fall to the floor, then kicked out of her deerskin slippers. Staring down at him, the starlight limning the slow, gentle curves of her breasts, she reached up and unpinned her hair, letting it tumble down around her shoulders.

  Yakima’s heart was beating quickly against his sternum, and his throat was going dry.

  She knelt before him, placed her hand gently against his cheek, sliding a lock of his long, black hair behind his ear.

  He kicked out of his boots and pulled her toward him, burying his face in the deep valley between her breasts.