Slocum and the Hanging Horse Page 11

“Most likely.”

  “Then he’ll certainly go back, and I’ll be there all alone!”

  “Yep,” Slocum said. He saw no way around that. He’d have to run Jeter to ground, or the outlaw could circle and return to the farm and his wife. It was a gamble Slocum made with Ruth’s life, but he had no other choice. He was betting on his skill at tracking down Jeter fast, no matter how the outlaw tried to conceal his trail.

  Slocum would hate to see the road agent kill Ruth, but that wouldn’t happen if Slocum got him first.

  11

  Amy Gerardo snapped the reins and kept the buckboard on the road until she reached the sign telling her that the Rodriguez family lived at the end of a smaller lane. Cottonwoods dotted the countryside and undoubtedly hid the rancho—if it could even be called that. From what Amy had gleaned from her sources, this Paco Rodriquez wasn’t the richest vaquero in West Texas or anywhere else. This brought a smile to her thin lips. Getting what she wanted from him would be that much easier. A few dollars and he would give her a precious artifact of the famed bandido Lester Jeter.

  She glanced over her shoulder into the bed of the buckboard to be certain her bags were still there. Clothing she could do without if that bag had happened to bounce out on the rough road, but the other held her notebooks and research notes. Those would be added to when she found out the details of how Paco had come by Jeter’s spurs.

  She rounded a bend in the narrow lane and saw the adobe hut ahead. A half-dozen children scurried about, some yelling for their mama. By the time Amy had pulled up in front of the adobe, a woman wearing an apron and a vexed expression had come to the door.

  “What can I do for you?”

  Amy liked it that the woman wasted no time and got down to business. She felt a curious need to dispense with pleasantries herself and be done with this hunt for another of Jeter’s artifacts. Ambrose’s approval was waiting for her. All she had to do was present the spurs to him and bask in his admiration.

  “It is my understanding that Mr. Rodriquez has a pair of spurs that once belonged to a famous gunman. I would speak with him about purchase of those spurs.”

  Two of the children tugged at Señora Rodriguez’s skirts. She shooed them away and stepped out into the bright sun. Holding up a hand to shade her eyes, she gave Amy the once-over, then nodded.

  “It is so. He owns these spurs. You are the one who asked in the village?”

  “I am, but I thought I was being discreet. It was my understanding the matter would not be discussed.”

  “Ha!” the stolid woman said, waving her hand in the air as if swatting flies. “Nothing is said that is not repeated a dozen times. What else is there to do here?”

  Amy started to agree that the woman had a point. Seldom had she seen an area so blighted. An acequia carried water behind the house, but what it irrigated was a mystery. The cottonwoods flourished on the water, but nothing other than weeds were to be seen. There might be a field on the far side of the cottonwood grove, but what might be grown there was as much a mystery to her as how Jeter’s spurs had ended up in a poor peon’s possession.

  “How did your husband come by them?”

  “You ask him. He is in the field.” The woman inclined her head in the direction of the irrigation canal. “You want a muchacho to show you?”

  “I am sure I can find the way.” Amy secured the reins and dropped to the ground. It was no surprise that the woman was several inches taller. Everyone was. That didn’t deter her. She reached into the back of the buckboard and grasped the handle of the valise holding her notebooks and other items pertaining to the hunt for Jeter’s life.

  She nodded to the woman and set off, holding her skirts above the muddy ground the best she could. Before she had gone a dozen yards, it became apparent this was a fool’s errand, and she let the hem drop and graze the weeds and occasionally soak up muddy water that stood in puddles. She kept moving, though, and eventually found a small bridge across the acequia. Looking around and not seeing Paco Rodriguez, she balanced carefully on the narrow board and crossed to the far side.

  She had barely stepped onto drier, firmer ground when she saw Rodriguez sitting under a tree whittling. Amy went directly to him and stood over him, trying to look as important as possible to impress this peasant. It didn’t work. He looked up at her and did nothing to conceal his contempt.

  “What do you want?”

  “Something you possess that my employer wishes for himself.”

  “You are the one they speak of in the village, no? The alcalde himself says you seek a certain pair of spurs, eh?”

  “That is right,” Amy said, vexed. The town mayor had been the one spreading her secret mission around. Ambrose had little faith or trust in the reliability of politicians. Reluctantly, Amy was coming around to agreeing with him, as she did on so many things.

  “How much? How much will you give for these spurs I have found?”

  “How did you come by them? They must be authenticated.” She saw he didn’t understand. “I must be sure they belonged to Jeter.”

  “How will you do this thing? How will you do this ‘authenticate’?” Rodriguez let the new word curl around on his tongue like a sip of heady tequila. Amy was glad she had given him something new to do. To judge from the pile of shavings, his entire day had been spent whittling a piece of wood into a toothpick while his wife cooked and coped with a houseful of children.

  She tapped her foot impatiently at the question.

  “I must examine—look at them. There are marks and other things that will tell me they are legitimate.”

  “Legitimate?”

  “The spurs,” Amy insisted.

  “They are hidden. Such valuable spurs, they must not be kept where anyone can find them.” Paco Rodriguez looked around as if someone spied on them. Amy had seen no one other than his family in the area. Even the ride out from the village had been singularly lonesome, though she had the eerie feeling that someone had ridden just far enough behind her to remain out of sight.

  She heaved a sigh of exasperation. To Rodriguez this was a game. To her it was serious business.

  “Get the spurs, bring them here, let me look at them, then we’ll talk about what they are worth.”

  “They are worth much. Mucho dinero,” he insisted.

  She waved him away as his wife had done with her small children. The gesture spoke to Rodriguez. He shot to his feet and hurried off, threading his way through the trees until he vanished, leaving Amy to stew. The things she did for Ambrose!

  Rodriguez returned less than ten minutes later with a package wrapped in oilcloth. Amy was glad to see he was taking such care. Rust would diminish the value—and blood would enhance the importance for Ambrose. It would be even more important to establish whose blood spotted the silver spurs and place them in their proper spot in the events of Jeter’s life. Provenance, Ambrose called it.

  “May I?” Amy held out her hands. Rodriguez hesitantly passed it over to her. She knelt and laid the package on the ground in front of her. Carefully unwrapping the oilcloth revealed a single gleaming spur. She looked up at the man and said, “There’s only one. I thought you had both spurs.”

  Rodriguez shook his head vigorously.

  “No, no, only the one. It came to me through great misfortune.”

  Using her handkerchief to keep from putting a sullying fingerprint on the metal, Amy picked up the spur and examined it more closely. The single letter J had been scratched into the side. Her heart raced. Ambrose would be certain to put this in one of his special display cases!

  “It’s been scratched up,” she said. “How’d that happen?”

  Rodriguez shrugged eloquently. “This is how I got it. The scratch can be buffed out. I can do it if that makes you want to buy.”

  “That’s all right,” Amy said, trying to keep the enthusiasm out of her voice. If she seemed too eager, he would jack up the price to the point she might not be able to purchase it. Since Ambrose didn’t know she wa
s even here, she had to use her own money. For all his strong character traits and how much she admired him as a man, Ambrose Killian paid her frugally. Amy smiled crookedly. He wasn’t frugal, he was a skinflint. But his parsimony made it possible for him to pursue his enthusiasms, such as collecting every artifact ever touched or used by Jeter.

  “You will buy it?”

  “I need to know everything about it,” Amy said, laying the spur onto its cloth as if it were a religious relic. She rummaged about in her valise and took out a notebook. “Without the details, I cannot buy this. It might be from anyone.”

  “But the scratch, it looks like a J.”

  Amy looked sharply at Rodriguez. The man knew what he had, and she had to find out how he had obtained it. Since Jeter was still alive, it hadn’t been a matter of robbing a corpse.

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “You know,” the man said, looking crestfallen, “I did not get this thing myself. It was Bernardo who got it. He stole it from the man wearing it because he thought the spur was pure silver.”

  “It’s nickel-plated iron,” Amy said. “I’ve seen dozens of spurs just like it.” She touched the sharp pointed tips on the wheel and imagined Jeter wearing it, raking the cruel Spanish rowel against his horse’s side until he flew like the wind away from one of his brutal, bloody robberies.

  “Bernardo did not know. The man who wore it claimed it was pure silver and worth much.”

  “Where?”

  “Down by the river. The Rio Grande,” Rodriguez said. “There is a cantina run by the hijo of Bernardo. Not so big, not so rich, but enough.”

  “By the Rio Grande,” mused Amy. She made a note to investigate later. Such a place probably served as a halfway point for road agents making their way into Mexico to escape U.S. lawmen—and for bandidos fleeing the rurales and seeking refuge in Texas. Serving bad liquor would be less profitable than furnishing a hideout for criminals terrorizing both sides of the border.

  “This is so,” Rodriguez said. “He come, this gringo bandido, and got drunk. He had much money and boasted of his spurs. He put his boots on the table so all could see the fine leather—and the spurs.”

  “So Bernardo unfastened the spurs and stole them while Je—” Amy caught herself. She wanted Rodriguez to divulge the name of the former owner. It lent more proof that Jeter had been the wearer if the peon named him. “The spurs were taken off a gunman while his feet were resting on the cantina’s table?”

  “No, no, he drank much, this bad man. He passed out from too much pulque. Then is when Bernardo crept in like a snake, slithering over, and took this spur. He wanted both, but the gunman, he woke. Furious at losing his spur, he began shooting. The son of Bernardo was hit. Here!” Rodriguez pointed to his belly.

  “So your friend Bernardo left his wounded son and brought you the spur?”

  Rodriguez shrugged.

  “What really happened, Paco?” she asked gently.

  “Bernardo, he did leave. There was nothing to do for his hijo. He feared for his own life, so he ran and hid. The gunman was very angry. He shot many times, then left.”

  “What happened then?” Amy scribbled furiously to record every word Rodriguez said, even as she added her own annotation to the tale. Ambrose would eat this up!

  “Bernardo come here, but he fears the gunman he will follow. So he hides the spur. It is pure silver, he knows. The gunman said so. He buried the spur and . . .”

  “And you found it. You stole it from Bernardo?”

  “I need money. Bernardo, he has a rich son. The cantina makes him rich.”

  “That isn’t what you said before.”

  “He is richer than me,” said Rodriguez. This justified his theft of the stolen spur. For Amy this was a believable explanation. She kept writing as Rodriguez went on. “He did not know I saw him hide this.” He pointed at the spur.

  “So you’re selling it and not telling him?” She kept writing, her steel-nibbed pen dipping into her ink and scratching furiously on the notebook pages.

  “I will share. If there is enough.”

  “Who was the gunman? Do you know his name?”

  “Bernardo say it was Jeter, but I do not know this myself.”

  “The letter J is his initial?”

  “Jota, the letter, yes, that is so. What will you give me for the spur?”

  “I’m sorry, Paco,” she said, closing her notebook and putting away her writing material in the valise. “It’s just not worth much. It’s not pure silver. See?” She spun the rowel until it squeaked. “Pure silver does not make such a sound. Nickel-plated steel does. This is an ordinary spur.”

  “But it was worn by this bad man.”

  “One dollar,” Amy said firmly. “That’s all I can offer for this.” She forced herself to remain calm. Ambrose would pay a hundred dollars for such an artifact.

  “No, no, not enough.”

  “Five dollars,” she said, seeing Rodriguez weakening. “Five dollars will buy a lot of pulque. Or tequila or whatever it is you want.”

  “Five, yes!” Rodriguez eagerly held out his calloused hand to be paid.

  As Amy reached for her clutch purse to get the money, a loud screech startled her. She looked up to see an old man hobbling toward them, waving a three-foot-long tree branch like a club. Her eyes went wide, and then the gray-haired man let out a screech as he swung that would have caused an owl to cringe. The branch hit the tree trunk next to Rodriguez, causing him to jump away.

  “What do you do, Bernardo?”

  “I will kill you! You stole from me!”

  The tree branch turned to splinters when Bernardo swung again and missed, hitting the trunk once more. Bernardo hobbled forward, his skeletal hands turned to claws. Rodriguez grappled with the old man and tumbled to the ground. Amy watched in fear, then hastily wrapped up the spur and tucked it away in her valise.

  By this time Rodriguez had his hands wrapped around Bernardo’s scrawny neck, choking the life from him.

  “Stop, don’t,” Amy cried, but it was too late. Rodriguez sat astride the supine man, hands still pressing into Bernardo’s windpipe. Panting, he looked up at Amy.

  “I have killed my friend. I cannot stay here. I must go into Mexico. Give me money. More money! All you have!”

  Amy was in shock and obeyed without thinking. She pulled a wad of greenbacks from her purse and shoved them in Rodriguez’s direction. He grabbed them and got to his feet.

  “Go. Run. You have seen nothing here. Run!”

  Amy did, then slowed, turned, and looked back in time to see Rodriguez helping Bernardo to his feet. Both men were counting the money when Amy walked back slowly, fuming at how gullible she had been.

  “Give me back my money,” she said.

  Both men looked up guiltily. Then Rodriguez sneered at her and shook his head vigorously.

  “No,” he said. “You do not deserve to have money while we have none.”

  “And you don’t deserve to die over a few dollars,” Amy said, drawing a derringer from her purse. She pointed it directly at Rodriguez’s face. “Adios, pendejo.”

  “Wait! No, do not shoot,” cried Bernardo. “Here. Here. Take it back. Todo. She will kill us, Paco. I see it in her face.”

  “You see what you want in the clouds, Bernardo. She will not—” Rodriguez stared at Amy and weighed her determination when she cocked the derringer. Her hand was steady and her gaze steely.

  “Perhaps you are right, Bernardo,” Rodriguez said uneasily. He held out the money, but Amy didn’t take it.

  “On the ground. Then you step back several paces. Not too many. I wouldn’t want you to get out of range in case I have to kill you.”

  The men did as they were told. Amy scooped up all the money, then peeled off five dollar bills and dropped them to the ground.

  “For the spur. Fair value.” She backed away, derringer still leveled, then stopped. “Bernardo, was it a tall tale or was that what happened? How you got the spur?”


  “It is true. We thought only to get more. When you did not pay it, we had prepared.”

  “Prepared your little drama,” Amy finished for him. “The spur’s for real? Jeter wore it?”

  Both men nodded until Amy thought their heads would come unhinged and fall off. She made certain the spur was securely hidden in her valise as she backed away. She saw the two men dive on the scrip she had dropped like vultures seeing rotting carrion. Let them fight over the five dollars. They might actually kill one another for such a paltry sum. She didn’t care because she had what she had come for. She hurried back to her buckboard, climbed up, and headed for the road.

  “I might be small, but I’m mighty,” she said to herself in satisfaction. She cast a quick glance back to the valise and the spur inside. Jeter had worn it. And Ambrose would be so pleased! She could hardly wait to see the look on his face when she presented the artifact to him and the riveting story that went along with it.

  12

  “Let me patch you up,” Ruth Jeter said. “You’re bleeding from a thousand gunshots and cuts.”

  “Not that many,” Slocum said, checking his arms and torso. He had been grazed twice and had picked up more than his share of scratches as he made his way downhill after Jeter, but he was in no danger of bleeding to death.

  “Please. It’s all I can do.”

  “You’re not holding me up so he can get away, are you?”

  Slocum looked at the way she reacted. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. That made him feel a mite better. She wasn’t trying to get back with Jeter, at least as far as he could tell. Why she had stayed with Jeter for so long, no matter that he had kept her on foot and miles away from the nearest neighbor, bothered him. But he hadn’t actually shackled her like a slave. Slocum wondered why Ruth hadn’t summoned up the spunk to either leave Jeter or lay in wait for him and kill him. She knew how he was providing for her.

  “That’s good,” he said when she finished tearing strips from her skirt and binding his minor wounds. “We ought to get on back to the house.”

  “You mean to leave me, don’t you?”