Río Chama Read online

  “You’ll fare worse.”

  The kid laughed. “As my pa would say . . . ‘You beat the Dutch, old man.’ You could be enjoying a mighty good whiskey, maybe even a fine-looking whore, at the Claire Hotel, eating green chile stew, and sopping up honey with tortillas. If you had taken the train, we could be in Chamita by now. I know a girl . . .”

  “You haven’t shut up since Santa Fe,” Wade said.

  “Just trying to get to know you. That’s all. It’s a long ride to the valley.” Cole’s eyes narrowed, but he kept smiling. “If you make it that far.”

  “We’ll make it.”

  The kid laughed. “I wouldn’t make that wager. I mean, on the both of us living to see the gallows. You do know who my father is?”

  “You’ve told me ten times.”

  “You’re crazy!” Panic now in the kid’s voice. “Why are you taking me in?”

  “You killed a priest.”

  “Was he your padre?” Jeremiah Cole put both hands behind his head, and leaned back against the tree, tried to sound light-hearted again. “No, you ain’t got to answer that. I’ve heard stories about Britton Wade. The gambling parlor or saloon is your church. ‘Britton Wade, he’s a blood brother of the devil.’ I seem to recall reading that in some newspaper, maybe a penny dreadful. You probably killed a dozen priests in your day.”

  “Shut up.”

  “All you got to do is let me go. Make things easier on the both of us.”

  Slaking his own thirst, Wade said nothing.

  “You might not even live to see Española.”

  He looked back at the horses. The sun had dipped behind the mountains. The Jemez range loomed before him, the Santa Fe Mountains behind him. A long way to go. He’d kill for a cup of coffee right about now, or a good taste of whiskey. The kid was right, too. It would turn mighty cold before morning, and the wind sure felt like snow. His flask was three-quarters full of a smooth Irish whiskey, but he didn’t want to drink anything, not whiskey, certainly not the laudanum, anything that would dull his senses. Jeremiah Cole seemed harmless enough, chatting like they were old pals, smiling, trying to charm Britton Wade, but he had seen the kid’s temper back outside the jail, and knew the young murderer must be waiting for a chance to jump him, kill him.

  The kid sighed again. “You’re a dead man, Wade.”

  He looked back at Jeremiah Cole, and surprised the kid with a wry grin. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

  * * * * *

  Too dark to read, he sat several rods from Jeremiah Cole, listening to the kid’s heavy breathing. Five days, he figured, to reach Chama, and he’d have to sleep at some point. Not tonight, he told himself, fighting weariness. Dan Augustine would be after him by now, but where would the gunman go? What would he do? How much time did Wade have?

  At first, Augustine and the Santa Fe sheriff would be confused. They’d blame each other, blame the Río Arriba County law, blame Senator Roman Cole. Augustine would send one of his boys to the Santa Fe depot, and when the train left, they’d search the town. Eventually they’d learn that Wade had bought a horse, mule, and rigs at the livery. Then what would Augustine decide? Take the trail from Santa Fe? No, not Augustine. He was too lazy to do that much work. Augustine would get back on the train, head to Chamita, and wait. Or, come morning, he’d send some of his boys south. Some would guard the road to Abiquiu.

  That made sense. Unless, of course, the livery man, suspicious, immediately reported the purchase of a horse and mule. Perhaps, right now, the Santa Fe sheriff was leading a posse after Britton Wade and his abducted prisoner. How much time did Wade have before the senator started on the trail? How long before everyone in the territory knew Wade was alone with Jeremiah Cole? The senator would post his own reward, paying handsomely to whoever freed his son from this crazy gambler with a foolish scheme and odd sense of justice.

  Even if he managed, through some sort of miracle, to bring Jeremiah Cole to Chama or Tierra Amarilla, no one could guarantee that the killer would hang. The senator could bust his son out of jail. What was it the priest back in Chama had told him? “I fear you are embarking on a mission that is noble but forlorn.”

  He felt suddenly tired, gave a slight cough, and shivered in the chill. The first mistake happened when he didn’t take the key to the prisoner’s handcuffs. It had sounded pretty good at the time, made the Cole kid fear him, fear what might really happen to him, but Wade’s act had been just stupid. Had he kept the key, he could have shackled Jeremiah Cole to that juniper, then slept with some peace, although not enough.

  The livestock and tack had set him back $35, and he didn’t know which was more worn, horse and mule or saddles and bridles. Next, he had dropped another $4.72 on Lion coffee, hardtack, jerky, and tortillas. That left him a grand total of $3.45.

  “Is it worth it?” he asked himself.

  * * * * *

  The rattling of metal saved his life. That, and his gambler’s luck.

  His eyes shot open, and, against his instinct, he rolled to his left. Iron whistled in the wind, the metal cuff bit into his ear, a glancing but searing blow that could have brained him good. Above him, in the darkness, came Jeremiah Cole’s grunt, and then his surprised yelp as Wade kept rolling, tripping his prisoner in his path. Had Wade gone right, instead of left, the kid would have been on top of him, beating him into unconsciousness, most likely death, with the iron manacles.

  A heavy cloud moved past the moon, two days past full, bathing the camp in white light, and Wade scrambled to his feet, thumbing back the .44’s hammer, cursing himself for falling asleep. Blood gushed from his ear-lobe, down his neck.

  “Drop it,” he ordered as Jeremiah climbed to his feet, turning, wielding the handcuffs like a knight’s mace. The kid measured his chances.

  “Father Amado doesn’t give a damn whether I bring you in alive or draped over that saddle,” Wade said. “It’s your call.”

  The metal bracelets dropped at Cole’s feet, and the kid laughed, holding up his wrists, revealing bloody, raw skin, just before another cloud blanketed the moon.

  “They say my wrists are big, but my hands are lady-like,” Jeremiah Cole said. “Real dainty and small. Takes a bit of work, but I’m pretty good at getting rid of them things. They tell me Billy the Kid was the same way, could slip out of iron bracelets just like me.”

  “Lot of good it did him,” Wade said.

  He felt the cough coming, savage, tried to suppress it, knew he couldn’t, then almost doubled over, hacking, coughing, forcing himself to straighten, backing away, almost blinded by the pain, waiting for Jeremiah Cole to make his play, but the kid just stood there, grinning in the darkness, as the moon reappeared, shaking his head slowly, mocking him.

  The pain eased, the coughing ceased, and Wade glanced at his hand, wiping the bloody froth on his pants leg.

  “You try something like that again,” Wade said, “and I’ll kill you.”

  “You told me that back in town.”

  “I won’t tell you again.”

  Cole started making his way back to the juniper, settled underneath the tree, and shook his head, his grin widening. “Oh, you ain’t got to worry about me, old man. I’ll just bide my time. I ain’t worried about you, no, sir, not one bit. You’ll cough yourself to hell long before we ever see the Chama valley.”

  * * * * *

  They made even worse time the following day, the clouds thickening, the wind blowing harder, flakes of snow falling every now and then. The desert lost much of its color, and the hills lost much of their juniper. Again, Wade rode off the trail, keeping out of sight.

  His ear stopped bleeding, his lungs no longer ached. Even Jeremiah Cole stopped his incessant chatter, resigned, Wade figured, to the fact that he’d have to travel north one way or the other. At noon, Wade opened a pack of Lion coffee, and they rested in the brown hills, filled their stomachs with black coffee and hardtack, and a good dose of blowing sand, while letting the livestock graze and drink from a pool of wat
er. All the while, Wade looked from his perch and watched the road off to the east.

  Biding his time. That was another mistake. A man on a good horse could easily travel the twenty-five miles from Santa Fe to Española in one day, yet it had taken Wade and his prisoner two. He had given Dan Augustine and the senator two days, let the word spread that Britton Wade was bringing in Jeremiah Cole to hang.

  Mistakes, and bad luck.

  In the middle part of the afternoon, Cole’s mule lost a shoe. Maybe the kid had helped things along, but it didn’t matter. Wade had wanted to skirt around Española, but he was no farrier, couldn’t risk a lame mount, so they waited in the hills a few hours, then made their way into the greening valley and the village of Española.

  It was a dirty little place, but it had water as three rivers—the Grande, Chama, and Santa Cruz—met, and it had a livery stable. Española had grown out of the dirt and cottonwood trees when the Denver and Río Grande Railroad’s Chile Line laid tracks back in 1880, a popular spot among the railroad men because of the food served at a restaurant run by a Mexican lady named Josefita Lucero. Britton Wade’s stomach grumbled at the thought of food, but, as light as his purse was, he could not visit any café.

  * * * * *

  The livery man’s face soured when Wade swung off the piebald, pointing at the mule’s left hind foot, and asking in broken Spanish if the jack could be shod this evening. “Muy pronto, por favor.”

  Sucking on a corncob pipe, the man grunted, refused to commit, until Wade flashed a greenback, then another. Wade couldn’t blame him for being suspicious. Although he had taken time to shave at the noon camp—much to Cole’s dismay—trail dust darkened his face, and his jacket remained caked with dried blood. Nor did Cole look presentable. Neither looked to be a promising, paying customer. The man set the pipe aside, and tugged on his thick, long, graying beard, mumbled something in Spanish underneath his breath, and at last nodded slightly.

  Cole quickly dismounted, handed the reins to the burly Mexican, and hooked his thumb across the street.

  “La cantina’s mighty inviting. Let’s take a smile.”

  Wade’s head shook.

  “Hell, I’ll buy.”

  “With what?”

  “Senator Roman Cole’s credit runs far and wide, Britton. You ought to know that. Why, my pa would be honored to buy you a drink. And folks here would be glad to stand us to a whiskey or three. The senator’s a right popular man in these parts.”

  “Sit down over yonder, and shut up.” Wade moved to the trough, cupped his hands, splashed water over his face. When he looked up, he saw them. Slowly straightening, he wiped his face with his bandanna, pushed his coattail away from the .44, and shot a quick glance at the livery man, busy filing the mule’s hoof, his back to the street.

  Three Mexicans stood in front of a hitching rail across the street, one pointing at the livery, whispering. Not looking at Wade, not even considering him, but staring at Jeremiah Cole. The youngest of the three, a boy in his teens, sprouting the beginnings of a mustache, nodded and took off running in his sandals, disappearing down an alley. The other two—older men, one hatless, the other wearing a bowler—spread apart. One held a shovel, and the man in the bowler tugged on a small-caliber revolver tucked in his sash.

  Yet another bit of bad judgment, Wade figured. He had more, much more to fear than just Dan Augustine, and the powerful senator. The words of the Mexican sheriff echoed inside his weary head: Many people . . . my people, that is, maybe not you norteamericanos . . . do not want the Cole boy to disappear, yet that is what they expect will happen. They will read in the newspaper how Jeremiah Cole escaped, has disappeared, fled the country, that there is no justice in Río Arriba County, or wherever Roman Cole can reach.

  They’d be after him, wanting to kill the Cole boy, and Wade if he got in the way, to prevent some obstruction of justice.

  Hoofs sounded, and the man with the pistol waved his hat, bringing the rider, a tall vaquero on a palomino mare, to a stop. More talking, more pointing, and the vaquero dismounted, tethered his horse, oddly enough, in front of the rail next to an out-of-place-looking bicycle. When the vaquero gathered his lariat and a battered Winchester rifle from the saddle, Wade cursed his luck.

  “Cole,” he said. “Come here.”

  The kid looked up, shook his head, and stretched his legs and arms. “I’m comfortable right here. Unless you’ve a mind now to have that whiskey.”

  Easily Wade walked to his horse, gathered the reins, and pretended to be looking for something in his Gladstone. “Don’t look across the street, Cole,” he said—and, damn him all the hell, the boy did exactly that, shot to his feet, his face masked in wonder.

  “I don’t think they give a damn about your pa, kid,” Wade said just above a whisper, “and care even less for you.”

  The kid’s bluster evaporated. He wet his lips, looked to Wade for help.

  Across the street, the batwing doors to the cantina opened, and a man in a blue bib-front shirt stepped out—the first gringo Wade had seen in town—followed by two other white men. The one in a blue shirt reached for the bicycle, but stopped when he heard shouts down the street. A church bell suddenly pealed. The livery man looked up, walked away from the mule toward the street in wonderment, tugging on his beard.

  “When I jump into the saddle, you leap on right behind me,” Wade told Cole. “Hold on tight. And before you think about trying to beat my brains out like you did last night, you take another gander at that mob.” He made himself smile. “I’m the only chance you got, kid.”

  What chance? he thought as he mounted the piebald.

  Chapter Three

  Whenever Roman Cole crested the ridge overlooking the valley, he would stop his horse, dismount, and smoke an El Pervenir from Havana that he had bought in Santa Fe solely for this purpose. For the rest of the day, whether he reached the spot shortly after breakfast or in the gloaming, no matter the season, no matter the weather, he would stare, admire, and relax his weary legs and backside from sitting so long in the saddle. Those who rode for the Triangle C called it his ritual—so did just about everyone from the Jemez to the San Juans—but Roman Cole considered it much more than just liturgy, although he wasn’t quite sure what he’d call it.

  It gave him pleasure, looking across the land, his land.

  A stagecoach ran twice a week from Abiquiu to Chama, a mud wagon carried passengers from Abiquiu to the railroad in Chamita, where travelers could take the train to Santa Fe, but Roman Cole had been riding this route on horseback for three decades. He didn’t care much for coaches, tolerated railroads only by necessity and for money, but loved the feel of a saddle, although, at sixty-two years old, the forty-pound C.P. Shipley slick-fork rig didn’t seem so damned comfortable over a two hundred-mile journey, round-trip—not that he’d ever admit the aches in his joints or the chaffing of his thighs and hindquarters to anybody.

  The cold wind blew a strong scent of wet pine, and he forgot all about the yellow dust he had been eating along the trail. He called himself a cattleman, but he had always admired trees. He was a man who liked shade, who liked the strength of the Ponderosa pines. Thirty years ago, when he had first come to this country, and built his home, he had left many trees standing at his ranch headquarters. More than a handful of his riders felt closed in by the forests, but not Roman Cole. Most Western men wanted a view, needed to see where they were going, but Roman Cole could not have cared less. Farther off to the east and north, higher in the mountains, he logged his land, even owned two of the four sawmills in the Chama valley, yet that was for profit, and Roman Cole was a man who knew about profit. Within reason, he told himself. A heartless man could have, would have destroyed much of the forest years ago.

  Cole dismounted the buckskin, loosening the cinch and hobbling the stallion before unbuckling a saddlebag and withdrawing a cigar and a flask of Tennessee sour mash. Here, he had that view his cowhands so admired. After clipping his cigar with his pocket knife,
he walked to the edge of the hill, settling his back against an old pine that had served as his resting place for a number of years. Below him the valley stretched on, grasslands, wanting to green up although drifts of snow remained in the shade, creeks already swelling, filling the aquecias that led from the rivers and streams to the Mexican farms, watering the crops that he, Roman Cole, let them grow. Shorthorns wearing the Cole brand grazed in pastures that reached from Sawmill and Tecolote mesas, past Willow Creek to gorges and mountains full of elk and bear. Behind him lay the forested pike from Abiquiu, and that desert country that reached down to Española and toward Santa Fe.

  Most of his friends—well, business acquaintances, for Roman Cole had met few men worthy of being called his friend—from Washington City and St. Louis, even some of those from Denver, all pictured New Mexico as some vast wasteland, a scorching desert of cacti and Apaches that they might find down toward Las Cruces, but the country here looked beautiful, chilly today, downright frigid in the winter, but a verdant Eden in spring and summer, and, God, so beautiful in the fall when the oaks turn red and the aspens gold.

  The road forked, the right trail leading into Tierra Amarilla—T.A. for short—the left heading north to Chama and the railroad. He had helped bring the railroad to Chama. History might remember him for that. He could make out the Brazos Cliffs, could picture the Canones Box and Sugarloaf Mountain, thought that maybe he’d disappear in those hills after the spring run-off, take his son and catch browns and rainbows until they were sick of trout. Yes, that would be a great way to celebrate. He hadn’t taken his sons—no, son—fishing in how many years? Hell, he’d never taken Jeremiah fishing.

  This was Cole land, as far as he could see. Inspiring. Satisfying. By Jehovah, it would take him another full day’s ride before he even reached ranch headquarters.

  Stretching his legs out before him, he struck a lucifer, and lit the cigar. Then he just sat there, the only noise the rustling of the pines in the wind, and the stallion using one of those big tree trunks to scratch an itch. Roman Cole smoked, and watched.