The Night People (23 page)

The bearded man recovered his light. “You would be Father Payne,” he said.

“That’s right. Who are you?”

“Nat Quarn. I do some prospecting.”

“And why are you here? We’ve seen your light other times recently.”

“I’m searching for treasure,” he answered.

“There is no treasure here,” the priest responded angrily.

“This church collapsed …”

“Because of an earthquake!”

“Or because of a treasure room beneath it.”

“There is no treasure room! Get out of here or I’ll have the police on you!”

“I …”

“Get out of here!” the old priest repeated.

Quarn hesitated a moment. Then, deciding that further pleading was useless, he scurried away up the steps. “Whatever his purpose here, it is evil,” Father Payne said. “I have heard bad talk of him in the town.”

“In Hopworth? I think I’d like to look around there,” Tokay said. “Maybe find out more about this Quarn fellow.”

“In the morning. Stay the night with Jugo and me.”

Tokay agreed, wondering if perhaps it was really his pistol they wanted to remain.

The town of Hopworth was little more than a desert crossroads, with a few dozen low buildings stretched out in four directions under the haze of the morning sun. There might have been a few hundred residents of the town at best, though this day their numbers seemed to be swollen by a number of out-of-state cars.

Tokay stopped in the first tavern he came to, and the bartender asked, “You here for the scorpion fights?”

“Not really, but I heard about them. That what’s attracting the crowd?”

“Sure thing! Some people’ll bet on anything!”

“I’m staying out at the church with Father Payne.”

The bartender grunted. “He still got that Mexican with him?”

“Jugo? What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s been in trouble with the sheriff. A little too fast with his knife when he’s been drinking. But Father Payne manages him.”

“He seemed harmless enough to me,” Tokay said.

“Don’t turn your back on him.”

Tokay finished his drink. “Know where I might find a prospector named Nat Quarn?”

“Haven’t seen him around today yet. But if he’s in town he’ll be at the scorpion fights tonight.”

Tokay spent the rest of the day back at the church, studying the scrolls of Coronado. Then in the evening he went to the scorpion fights.

The men in the little barn were mainly from out of the state, some from as far away as Las Vegas. They talked and laughed in loud voices, and drank from a barrel of beer furnished by the nearby tavern. In the center of the floor was a large table, and on it was a ring some three feet in diameter surrounded by a low wall. It was there the scorpions would do battle.

As Tokay watched and sipped his beer, the girl from the diner entered with her cigar box. “How’s the scorpion?” he asked her.

“Oh—hello! I was hoping I’d see you again.” She opened the lid so he could see the hairy curved tail. “Want to bet on him?”

“What wagers are usually made?”

“Mostly ten or twenty dollars, though later in the evening someone might go for a hundred.”

“I could maybe risk a buck.”

She threw back her head and laughed, and Tokay was suddenly struck by her youthful beauty. “Well, that’s better than nothing.”

He glanced around the barn. “Where’s your brother?”

“Out wandering around somewhere. He comes with me but he doesn’t like to see the fights.”

The man whose scorpion would oppose hers in the first fight was Hakor, owner of the barn and one of the town’s wealthiest men. He seemed almost like a scorpion himself, curved slightly with age and ready to sting. When he unboxed his champion a murmur of approval ran through the spectators and new bets were made.

“It’s only half as large as yours,” Tokay said.

“Hakor is smart. That’s a Mexican species whose venom could paralyze my
Hadrurus.
”

Hakor accepted a few more bets, then nodded to Liz Golden. She took up a position on one side of the table and unboxed her scorpion. At once more bills changed hands and there were shouted wagers among the crowd. Liz poked at her scorpion with a small stick, goading it into battle, and gradually as Tokay watched the two scorpions moved closer together.

There was a roar of delight from the spectators as they clashed, but almost at once attention was diverted to the door. Someone new had entered, and Tokay recognized the bartender from the tavern.

“What is it, Sammy?” Liz asked as he approached her.

“Your brother—someone has stabbed him. He’s dead.”

A low moan escaped from her throat, and Tokay grabbed her as she swayed and nearly fell. Then she pushed by him and hurried after Sammy.

Later, when Tokay found the girl, he held out the cigar box to her. “Your scorpion won,” he said quietly. “I collected the money for you.”

She nodded her thanks without speaking and accepted the scorpion box and the money. Tokay said, “I’m sorry about your brother. Who could have killed him? Was he robbed?”

“He never had more than a few dollars on him, and none of it was taken. I don’t know. I don’t know who would do such a thing.”

“Where was he killed?”

“In an alley near where the car was parked. Sammy heard a noise and found him dying there.”

“Should you call your family?”

She shook her head, brushing away a tear. “I’m all the family Randy had. Our folks were killed in a car crash. That’s where he got the limp.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again.

It was Hakor who appeared then, bent with age but moving faster than he had in the barn. “The sheriff’s looking for you, Liz. The knife that killed your brother had a name carved into the handle.”

“A name?”

“
Jugo.
The Mexican who lives out at the church. It was his knife.”

“You think he did it?” Tokay asked.

“Seems so. The sheriff’s planning to arrest him, anyway.”

Tokay tried to remember if Jugo had carried a knife the previous evening, but he could not. Either way, he knew he was needed back at the Mission of San Felipe. Father Payne had asked for his protection, and now he needed it.

When Father Payne heard of the killing and the knife he shook his head sadly. “Jugo has been here all evening. They’re using the killing as an excuse to arrest him.”

“But why?”

Father Payne closed his eyes, as if better to focus on something in the reaches of his mind. “It is a long story, Tokay, and one better left for another day.”

“I think I should hear it now,” he said.

“Very well, then. When the old church collapsed, generations ago, some of the townspeople were killed. That man Quarn was right—there was no earthquake. The priest who had built the mission, and who died himself in its collapse, had indeed put a treasure room for Spanish gold beneath its foundations. The church collapsed, and the people—rightly or wrongly—blamed the priest. The new mission was built, and I came to minister to them, but the old suspicion and hatred remained—passed down three generations. When I allowed an outsider like Jugo to live here for a time, that old hatred flared again. He was a sinister stranger, and I was another of the old priests bringing disaster to the town.”

They heard cars pulling up outside, and doors slamming. “That will be the sheriff,” Father Payne said, “with some of the townspeople. I must warn Jugo.”

There were voices outside the mission doors now, and a hard knocking. Tokay left the old priest and went out to meet the crowd. The sheriff was in the lead, and old Hakor was by his side.

“We’ve come for the Mexican,” Hakor said. “The sheriff has a warrant for his arrest.”

Tokay stood in the doorway, blocking it. He spotted Liz Golden and called to her. “It was your brother who died, Liz. Do you want an innocent man to suffer for the crime?”

“Only the guilty one,” she replied.

Then, near the edge of the crowd, Tokay recognized Nat Quarn, the prospector. “What about you, Quarn?” he said. “You were sneaking around here last night. You could have found Jugo’s knife.”

Quarn stepped forward, his beard spotted with tobacco juice. “If you’re accusing me you’d better be able to prove it! I never even seen that limping boy till after he was dead!”

“Do you deny you’re treasure-hunting here?”

Quarn started to answer but Hakor interrupted. “There’s the guilty one now!” he shouted, pointing beyond Tokay to where Jugo had appeared with Father Payne. Suddenly the crowd surged forward and Tokay feared they might break past him.

But Father Payne spoke to them. “You all know me. Go back to your homes. I give you my word this man is innocent!”

“Let’s have the Mexican!” someone else shouted, and Tokay saw that it was Sammy, the bartender.

But as the shouting increased and the mood of the crowd grew more ugly, Liz Golden ran forward to join Tokay on the steps. “Listen—listen, all of you! He was my brother and I have a right to be heard! Don’t do anything you’ll be sorry for later!”

“We won’t be sorry getting rid of that Mexican!” Hakor cried.

“You have the knife that killed my brother. Let the Mexican touch it—here, inside the church—and swear to God he is innocent of the murder. If he does that, it will convince me.”

Tokay had stepped aside and the crowd gradually spilled into the back of the church. The sheriff produced the knife and handed it to her. “Don’t worry about fingerprints,” he said. “A dozen folks handled it before I ever got a look at it.”

Liz Golden took the knife and looked around for someplace to put it. She decided on a deep wooden box with a hinged and slotted top through which donations for the poor could be dropped. Father Payne emptied it of its few coins and Liz dropped the knife inside. “Now then, Jugo,” she said to the Mexican, “reach inside, grasp the knife and swear by the Lord that you did not kill my brother.”

Jugo looked at her uncertainly, then shifted his gaze to Tokay and Father Payne. Perhaps it was the grumbling of the crowd that finally decided him. He thrust his hand into the poor box and said, “By the Lord I am innocent of this crime!”

“What does that prove?” Hakor asked with a snort.

Liz Golden merely smiled. “Would you like to try it, Mr. Hakor?”

“Of course not! It’s superstitious nonsense!”

“I don’t think so. I think it’ll tell us who really killed my brother.”

Sammy the bartender spoke up. “I’ll take the oath. I don’t want people thinking I killed him because I found the body.”

He plunged his hand into the box, grasped the knife and said the words. One or two others stepped forward then, and even the sheriff joined in. Finally Hakor was forced to follow them.

“Satisfied now?” he asked Liz.

She reached in with a cloth to wipe off the knife. “Who’s next? How about you, Mr. Quarn?”

The prospector glanced about uncertainly, then stepped forward and thrust his hand into the box. Almost at once he let out a shriek and fell to the floor grasping his hand. “My God! My God—yes, I killed him! I stabbed him! Oh, God!”

Liz Golden slammed down the lid on the poor box. “There’s your confession. Sheriff—and the real killer of my brother.”

The sheriff merely gaped. “Why would he kill your brother?”

Tokay stepped forward, looking down at the man on the floor. “I think I can answer that. We found him prowling around the old church last night, looking for Spanish gold. That’s when he must have stolen the knife from Jugo’s belt. He had nothing against young Randy, but he wanted Jugo arrested for a killing—any killing. You see, Father Payne never leaves the mission, but he did get Jugo off a couple of times when you arrested him. Surely he’d hurry into town if Jugo was charged with murder, and Quarn could search the mission for the Spanish treasure.”

“Is this true, Quarn?” Hakor asked the man on the floor.

“Yes, yes! God, do something about my hand!”

Liz bent over him with a needle. “This antivenin will help.”

“Help with what?” Hakor asked.

Liz looked up. “It was the only way I could get a confession out of him. When I wiped off the knife, I left my scorpion in there.”

Later Tokay asked Father Payne, “What happened to the treasure under the old church?”

“Stolen long ago. My only treasure is Coronado’s scrolls.”

“Then I’ll leave them with you. They’ll be safe here.”

Tokay went outside to find Liz Golden. “Which way are you headed?”

“Back home to Tucson, after tomorrow morning. Father Payne is having a service for Randy and he’ll be buried here.”

“Your car’s rented. Turn it in and I’ll drive you back.”

“All right.”

“But tell me one thing,” Tokay said. “How did you know Quarn was guilty when you set him up for the scorpion?”

“He said he’d never seen my brother but he described him as a limping boy. How did he know about the limp if he’d never seen him?”

“Someone else might have seen Randy and mentioned the limp to Quarn. He might have been completely innocent.”

“But he wasn’t, was he?”

The next afternoon, with the scorpion in the cigar box, they left for Tucson together.

T
HE NIGHTMARE BEGAN ON
a Monday in May, when I stepped off the afternoon shuttle flight from Boston and caught a taxi for Martha’s third-floor apartment overlooking Gramercy Park. It was a sunny day in Manhattan and my spirits were high. I’d have two nights with Martha before returning home. With luck I might even take care of the business which was this month’s excuse for the trip.

Martha Gaddis was my mistress. It’s a word that’s rarely used in these liberated times, but that’s what she was, nevertheless. I didn’t actually support her to the extent of paying the rent on her five-room apartment, but when I made my monthly trips to New York—to check on the diamond merchants along 47th Street or the antique jewelry at the little shops on upper Madison Avenue—she was always there waiting for me.

Of course my wife Joan didn’t know about Martha Gaddis. She thought I stayed at the apartment of an old army buddy when I was in New York. Maybe she had her suspicions, but if so she never voiced them. It was probably better that way. Having Martha, after all, didn’t mean that I loved Joan any less. Joan was my wife and the mother of our two children. That was one life.