Doubtful Canon (14 page)

The Apaches sent two braves after me. I fetched one to perdiction. Wounded the other. And then hid in the rocks till it come full night. Then I sneaked my way back to the station. Waited Reckon I was ’bout out of my head, too. Then Willie Spoon and ’em freighters come. I joins up with ’em, and we bury the dead. Bury Mister Giddings. His bones anyway.

Now, all this time durin’ the buryin’, I’m lookin’ for that hole, that juniper, but, well, wasn’t nothin’ I could do then. Didn’t have no horse. And there must’ve been practically twenty men hired on with that train. Wasn’t of a mind to share that gold with ’em. Not that many of ’em, and couldn’t trust ’em. And, yeah, there were those Apaches to think ’bout. So it struck me that that gold wasn’t goin’ nowhere, and I just grinned like a fool. John Butterfield, he’d think either the Apaches gots it or it gots buried and the location died with Mister Giddings. That’s what I let ’em Overland boys in Tucson believe.

Figgered I’d come back for it when the Apaches was gone, or at least not so troublesome. Would have come back sooner, maybe, but, well, there was all ’em misunderstandin’s between me and ’em lawdogs here and there.

That’s how it was. And that’s the gospel.

When Whitey Grey finished his story, Miss Eleora Giddings slapped his face, a savage hit that sounded like a cannon round in the rock house.

“You…!” Trembling with rage, she struck him again, knocking off his hat, and the white-skinned man accepted his punishment. “You murdered my father!”

“Apaches done it,” he said softly.

Another wallop.

“’Twas him or me, and he was bad off. Cherry Cows would’ve kilt both of us. Almost done it anyhow.”

This time she balled both fists and punched his head, let out a terrible groan, stepped back, shaking her stung hands, and sank to her knees. She started to sob, but quickly choked it off, and took a deep breath. She cursed Whitey Grey.

Curly Bill Brocious just laughed. His partner appeared to be deep in contemplation, pondering the albino’s story, showing no concern for the upset young woman. He smoothed his mustache and, his mood now amiable, asked Brocious to share his thoughts.

The gunman took a final glance outside and, turning to face Ringo, shrugged. “Ain’t seen hide nor hair of no Apaches. Cañon looks deserted.”

“Last night’s storm likely took the fight out of them,” Ringo offered.

“Could be.” Brocious pointed at Whitey Grey. “You believe his yarn?”

“It adds up. You?”

Another shrug. “I’ve bet on worse hands. But I don’t get why the kids are here.”

“I do.” Dutch Ringo grinned when the albino and the children looked at him. I had wondered that myself, had toyed with various theories but never really liked anything I had considered.

“The freak says that hole in the cañon was too small for him. He hasn’t shrunk any in twenty years, so he figures a child can wriggle into that pit, get those saddlebags. You kidnap them, Grey?”

The albino snorted, wet his lips, rough fingers tracing the blotches on his cheeks left by Miss Giddings’s hits. His eyes avoided Ian Spencer Henry, Jasmine, and me, and he shuffled his feet and muttered: “Tol’ me they was orphans. But they lied.”

“Runaways?” Brocious shook his head. “I don’t know about this now, Dutch. Their parents…maybe the sheriff…they’ll be combing this territory for those young ’uns.”

“Is that true?” Ringo asked Ian Spencer Henry, who naturally told him everything: how many days we’d been gone from Shakespeare, our adventures along the Southern Pacific tracks and through
Valle de las Playas,
and, how his father would barely notice he was even missing, that Jasmine’s dad had been killed (he left out the particulars), and that my father had been in an accident that had left his two legs broken.

Where Ian Spencer Henry came up with that lie, I don’t know, but I understood why he had chosen to tell such a stretcher. Out of respect for me. He didn’t want those outlaws to know my father was a drunkard. They could think what they wanted of his own addle-brained father, but Ian Spencer Henry would protect Jasmine Allison and me. His goodwill and loyalty ran deep. We couldn’t have asked for a better partner, or friend.

“I like this here boy, Dutch,” Brocious said. “He can ride with me anytime.”

“I like the girl better.” Ringo nodded at Jasmine. “She doesn’t say a word.”

Brocious shook his head. “Dumb fool girls,” he said, his eyes moving from Jasmine to Miss Giddings. “None of them should ever have left home. This country ain’t for the gentler sex. Respectable women, I mean.”

“I’m all for riding with you, Curly Bill,” Ian Spencer Henry sang out. “We could be famous, get written up by Mister Buntline or Colonel Ingraham. Those are two of my favorite authors. And I figure I’ve got the right name to be a great scout or trapper or bad guy. Two of my names are the same as fast-shooting rifles.”

Brocious ran his fingers through my friend’s hair. “That so. Sakes alive, though, I never heard of an Ian rifle. How’s it compare to the Winchester?”

“Nooooo.” Ian Spencer Henry started to correct Brocious, not catching the gunman’s joke, but Ringo cut him off.

“You still haven’t given me reason to believe the good citizens of Shakespeare haven’t formed a posse and are tracking you down.” His head tilted at me. “There’s no law in Shakespeare, but I know this boy has friends in town. The skinflint at the mercantile seemed to favor the lad when we were getting outfitted. And I don’t want to be mistaken for some child stealer, get caught between an angry, worried father and his kid.”

“You won’t,” my friend assured him. “Besides, Jack here left a letter in the Lady Macbeth Mine to throw any searchers off the trail, someone like Mister Shankin, I reckon. When they find it and read it, they’ll think we’ve run off to El Paso. So that’s where they’ll be looking, if they ever get around to looking. East of Shakespeare. Not west. Not here.”

Upon hearing of this chicanery, Ringo gave me a moment’s consideration. “Smart lad,” he said. “The boys and me can always use a good liar. Look me up when you grow up a few more inches, say in about two or three years.”

“In two or three years,” I said, “you’ll likely be dead.” His face dropped, and Curly Bill Brocious let out a loud howl, but I spun to the killer and told him: “You, too, Curly.” He kept on laughing, even when I said: “Maybe in two or three more hours.”

“By you?” Brocious asked, snorting and bellowing, dabbing his watering eyes with the ends of his bandanna.

“Apaches,” I said. “I’m not sure they’re gone.”

Brooding, Dutch Ringo withdrew his whiskey bottle again, his eyes malevolent, and I felt relieved Curly Bill Brocious found some humor in my remarks. If not, Ringo might have shot me. I’m not sure why I said it, or even if I really thought the Apaches might be lying in wait for us, ready to wipe us out, for what Ringo said had made sense. In all likelihood, the savage storm of the previous night had driven the Indians away.

“You could be right, kid,” Brocious said. With a final snigger, he walked over to Ringo, helped himself to a drink, corked the bottle, and told his partner, his words evenly spaced and tough: “Braced yourself enough for the day’s work, Dutch. I’d like you sober. Kid could be right. Apaches, the law, Mexican bandits, or the Army. Anything could be waiting for us in that cañon.”

“All right.” Ringo’s voice was just above a whisper. My words, somehow, had unnerved him. That I found strange. A man like Dutch Johnny Ringo had no fear.

Brocious walked over to the albino. “But why three kids, Grey? I still don’t quite savvy that.”

Our former leader looked slightly embarrassed. “Wasn’t sure they’d all come,” he said.

“Story! He’s telling a story!” Ian Spencer Henry said. “He said we all had to come with him. That it was all of us or none of us. Said he’d kill any of us that turned back on him. You’re supposed to tell the truth, Mister Grey. Dutch Ringo will know if you’re fibbing or not.”

“That is the truth,” the white-skinned man said. “Yeah, I threatened ’em. Tried to scare ’em. But I didn’t think they’d all come. But they did.”

“And you’re glad of it,” Ringo said. “Isn’t that right?”

After a long wait, the albino’s head bobbed.

“Tell them why, you miserable mistake of nature.”

When no answer came, Ringo, his despondency having faded, laughed. “He just needs one kid,” he told me, and I knew he meant that as a threat. The man had a vindictive streak wider than a quarter-section. “This is tough country. One of you kids might have gotten killed. Might still get killed. That ivory-faced fool, he was just playing the odds.” He laughed again, a cold, callow laugh. “What do you say, Curly? Should we kill two of these children now? Be less trouble.”

Brocious’s eyes widened. Finally he smiled, but I doubted if he knew for certain if Ringo were serious or not. “Still might have need, Dutch. Like you said, this is dangersome country. It would be a shame if we didn’t have no kid to volunteer to climb into that hole.” He tilted his head toward the albino. “But what about him?”

“We need him,” Ringo said. “For now. He’ll point us to the spot. What did you say, freak? About two miles into the cañon?”

No answer came, and the outlaws didn’t press the matter. “Doesn’t matter,” Ringo said. “It’s near this lady’s daddy’s grave. Let’s go find it.”

“What about her?” Brocious pointed at Miss Giddings.

“Bring her along, too,” Ringo said with a crooked grin. “After all, we’re all partners.”

For the second time in my life, for the second time in as many days, I began the descent into Doubtful Cañon.

Whitey Grey led the way on foot, his head down, thumbs hooked in his britches, downcast, knowing he had lost, had lost after twenty years of dreaming. I almost felt sorry for him.

Miss Giddings walked along with Ian Spencer Henry, Jasmine, and me, about fifteen yards behind the albino, Ian Spencer Henry protecting us, or so he said, pointing the .44 Colt toward one side of the cañon, then the other. He had given me his slingshot, which I stuck in my back pocket. Twenty yards behind us rode Curly Bill Brocious, keeping along the left side of the cañon, as close to the wall as his horse would let him. On the opposite side rode Dutch Johnny Ringo.

Rain had cleansed the ground, purified the cañon, it struck me, and the air smelled sweet, the
clopping
of the hoofs behind us in dark contrast to the desert landscape’s raw beauty.

“Do you really believe what you said?”

Her voice surprised me, for Miss Giddings had said nothing since attacking Whitey Grey back in the rock house. I looked up, never slacking my pace, and saw her staring at Ian Spencer Henry, who lowered his gun.

“Ma’am?”

“What you said about your parents? Your father?”

He frowned, looked away. “My pa don’t care a thing about me. My ma, neither. She run off to Ann Arbor, left me. Me and Pa both. My pa don’t know I’m alive, just like he never noticed my ma.”

His voice choked at the last few words, and tears glistened in my own eyes. I’d never really understood that about my friend. I never knew how much he hurt, perhaps because all of that time I had been so preoccupied with my own pain.

“And, you, child?” she asked me. “Did your father really break both of his legs in a mining accident?”

Refusing to let the tears come, I answered her coldly. “No, ma’am. He’s a drunk. He’s been a walking whiskey keg ever since….” I couldn’t hold back the tears, cursed as they streamed down my face, attacking them, sniffling, making myself stop crying. I made myself finish. “Ever since my mother and sisters died. Diphtheria.”

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “But you still have your father.”

“No, I don’t!” I shouted, surprised to hear my words echoing across the cañon.

“Shut up!” Ringo barked. “Don’t let half the territory know where we are.”

I waited until we had traveled twenty more yards. “I don’t have my father. Whiskey’s got him.”

I kicked a stone savagely. I wanted to run away, to catch up with Whitey Grey, walk with him, or maybe just keep running until Dutch Ringo shot me in the back. Yet I couldn’t. Staring ahead, I walked, fighting back the tears as they tried to blind me, tried to block out anything Miss Giddings said. Trying to, but failing.

“How about you…Jasmine, isn’t it?”

Jasmine Allison wet her lips. “That’s right,” was all she said.

“Your father. He is dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“I really don’t mean to pry, children,” Eleora Giddings said, and Jasmine cut her off with a bitter laugh.

“Oh, you ain’t prying, ma’am. No big deal. Everybody in New Mexico knows about my daddy. Cornwall Dan. That’s all I knew him by, all I ever heard him called, but I didn’t know him, you see. My mama didn’t know him, either. Not really. You see, my mother…well, we’re not talking about her, are we? Not quite a year ago, vigilantes hanged my father. Hanged him and a cowboy named King. Strung both of them up in the Grant House. But that’s all right. I didn’t shed any tears over Cornwall Dan’s passing. Neither did my mama. Like she won’t be shedding any tears over mine.”

Curly Bill Brocious’s voice rang out: “Hey, Dutch, that girl child, the one you fancy ’cause she don’t say nothing, well, she’s talking up a storm now. Can’t hear what she’s saying, but….”

“Shut up, Curly, and watch the walls.”

Chuckling, Brocious kicked his feet free of the stirrups to stretch his legs, shifting the Winchester in his arms, enjoying his good humor.

“You’re very young to be carrying such bitterness,” Miss Giddings said. “All three of you. I don’t know you, don’t know your father, Ian, or your father, Jack, or your mother, Jasmine, but I bet they love you dearly, and at least you knew all of your parents.”

I snorted, the only comment.

Ignoring my sarcasm, Miss Giddings kept on preaching while we walked. “You think of this, children. You were blessed. I never knew my father. Never knew what he looked like, never got the chance for him to rock me to sleep, to tell me stories, never heard his voice, never felt his touch, never felt his love. Think about this.”

With another snort, I faced her. “You might want to think about this,” I said savagely. “You might want to think about how we’re going to get out of Doubtful Cañon alive.”

“I think Ringo’s right,” Ian Spencer Henry said. “I think the Apaches have fled.”

My wrath turned to my best friend. “It’s not the Apaches I’m talking about, you idiot. Get your mind out of those fool novels you read. It’s them!” I hooked my thumb toward Ringo and Brocious.

“Huh? What…?”

“Let’s quit that confab!” Brocious ordered. “No more talking up yonder. Just walk.”

So…we focused on where we were going, twisting and turning into the cañon’s depths, past strewn boulders, patches of catclaw and yucca, even a pool of water here and there, through the juniper. Walking…following a killer like Whitey Grey, being followed by two more ruthless murderers.

Ahead, the white-skinned man never looked back, making a beeline, plodding on and on.

I noticed it first. Well, maybe not, for Jasmine could have recognized where we were—so could have Miss Giddings—and said nothing. Our location dawned on Ian Spencer Henry, too, and, looking up ahead at the albino, then glancing from side to side, he stopped.

“Hey…,” he began.

“Shut up!” I snapped in a frightened voice, fearing my friend would give everything away. I never slowed down. “Keep walking!”