It was cool relief after the glaring white light of the afternoon; but with the darkness, the slope that was still a painting now came alive and was something menacing.
Struggles crawled back to the slope and stood up, cupping his hands to his mouth, and whispered, "Juan," then gritted his teeth as the word cut the silence.
He waited, but nothing happened. He brought up his hands again, but jumped back quickly as a stream of loose shale clattered down from above. And as if on signal, two rifles opened up from below. Struggles went flat and inched back to the rim as the firing kept up, spattering against the flinty slope.
When it stopped, he raised his head above the rocks, but there was only the darkness. They"re not a hundred feet away, They"re not a hundred feet away, he thought. he thought. Waiting for us to move. Waiting for us to move. He settled down again, pressing close to the rock barrier. Well, they were going to have a long wait. But now he wondered if he was alone. Since the firing there had been no sound from above. Had something happened to Juan? He settled down again, pressing close to the rock barrier. Well, they were going to have a long wait. But now he wondered if he was alone. Since the firing there had been no sound from above. Had something happened to Juan?
Time lost its meaning after a while and became only something that dragged hope with it as it went nowhere.
Sometime after midnight, Struggles started to doze off. His head nodded and his chin was almost on his chest, but even then a consciousness warned him and he jerked his head up abruptly. He moved it from side to side now, shaking himself awake; and as his face swung to the left he saw the pinpoint of a gleam up on the mountainside.
He came to his feet, fully awake now, but blinked his eyes to make sure. The light was moving down with crawling slowness from the peak, flickering dully, but growing in intensity as it inched down the rock slide path that Juan Solo had climbed earlier.
After a few minutes Struggles saw a torch, with the flame dancing against the blackness of the 43 43 slope, and as it descended to the ledge the shape of a man was illuminated weirdly in the flickering orange light it cast.
The figure moved to the edge, holding up a baroque cross whose end was the burning torch- the figure of a man wearing the coa.r.s.e brown robes of a Franciscan friar.
He held the cross high overhead and spoke one sentence of Castilian, the words cold and shrill in the darkness.
"Leave this Blood of the Saint or thus your souls shall plunge to the h.e.l.l of the d.a.m.ned!"
His arm swung back and the torch soared out into the night and down until it hit far below on the slope in a shower of bursting sparks. The figure was gone in the darkness.
Quiet settled again, but a few minutes later gunfire came from down the slope. And shortly after that, the sound of horses running hard, and dying away in the distance.
The rest of the night Struggles asked himself questions. He sat unmoving with the dead cigar stub still in his mouth and tried to think it out, applying logic. Finally he came to a conclusion. There was only one way to find out the answers to last night"s mystery.
At the first sign of morning light he rose and started to climb up the slope toward the ledge.
This would answer both questions-it was the only way.
He was almost past caring whether or not the American and his men were still below. Almost. He climbed slowly, feeling the tenseness between his shoulder blades because he wasn"t sure of anything. When he was nearing the rim, a hand reached down to his arm and pulled him up the rest of the way.
"Juan."
The Indian steadied him as he got to his feet. "You came with such labor, I thought you sick."
And at that moment Struggles did feel sick. Weak with relief, he was, suddenly, for only then did he realize that somehow it was all over.
He exhaled slowly and his grizzled face relaxed into a smile. He looked past Juan Solo and the smile broadened as his eyes fell on the torn blanket with the pieces of rope coiled on top of it.
"Padre, you ought to take better care of your ca.s.sock," Struggles said, nodding toward the blanket.
Juan Solo frowned. "Your words pa.s.s me," he said, looking out over the slope; and added quickly, "Let us find what occurred with the American."
Struggles was dead certain that Juan knew without even having to go down from the ledge.
Not far down the grade they found him, lying on his face with stiffened fingers clawed into the loose sand. Near his body were the ashes of the cruci 45 45 form, still vaguely resembling-even as the wind began to blow it into nothingness-the shape of a cross.
Struggles said, "I take it he didn"t believe in the friar, and wouldn"t listen to his men who did."
Juan Solo nodded as if to say, So you see what naturally happened, So you see what naturally happened, then said, "Now there is plenty of time for your silver, Senor Doctor," and started back up the grade. then said, "Now there is plenty of time for your silver, Senor Doctor," and started back up the grade.
Struggles followed after him, trying to picture Tomas Maria, and thinking what a good friend the friar had in Juan Solo.
3.
Three-Ten to Yuma.
He had picked up his prisoner at Fort Huachuca shortly after midnight and now, in a silent early morning mist, they approached Contention. The two riders moved slowly, one behind the other.
Entering Stockman Street, Paul Scallen glanced back at the open country with the wet haze blanketing its flatness, thinking of the long night ride from Huachuca, relieved that this much was over. When his body turned again, his hand moved over the sawed-off shotgun that was across his lap and he kept his eyes on the man ahead of him until they were near the end of the second block, opposite the side entrance of the Republic Hotel.
He said just above a whisper, though it was clear in the silence, "End of the line."
The man turned in his saddle, looking at Scallen curiously. "The jail"s around on Commercial."
"I want you to be comfortable."
Scallen stepped out of the saddle, lifting a Winchester from the boot, and walked toward the hotel"s side door. A figure stood in the gloom of the doorway, behind the screen, and as Scallen reached the steps the screen door opened.
"Are you the marshal?"
"Yes, sir." Scallen"s voice was soft and without emotion. "Deputy, from Bisbee."
"We"re ready for you. Two-oh-seven. A corner... fronts on Commercial." He sounded proud of the accommodation.
"You"re Mr. Timpey?"
The man in the doorway looked surprised. "Yeah, Wells Fargo. Who"d you expect?"
"You might have got a back room, Mr. Timpey. One with no windows." He swung the shotgun on the man still mounted. "Step down easy, Jim."
The man, who was in his early twenties, a few years younger than Scallen, sat with one hand over the other on the saddle horn. Now he gripped the horn and swung down. When he was on the ground his hands were still close together, iron manacles holding them three chain lengths apart. Scallen motioned him toward the door with the stubby barrel of the shotgun.
"Anyone in the lobby?"
"The desk clerk," Timpey answered him, "and a man in a chair by the front door."
"Who is he?"
"I don"t know. He"s asleep ...got his brim down over his eyes."
"Did you see anyone out on Commercial?"
"No...I haven"t been out there." At first he had seemed nervous, but now he was irritated, and a frown made his face pout childishly.
Scallen said calmly, "Mr. Timpey, it was your line this man robbed. You want to see him go all the way to Yuma, don"t you?"
"Certainly I do." His eyes went to the outlaw, Jim Kidd, then back to Scallen hurriedly. "But why all the melodrama? The man"s under arrest-already been sentenced."
"But he"s not in jail till he walks through the gates at Yuma," Scallen said. "I"m only one man, Mr. Timpey, and I"ve got to get him there."
"Well, dammit ...I"m not the law! Why didn"t you bring men with you? All I know is I got a wire from our Bisbee office to get a hotel room and meet you here the morning of November third. There weren"t any instructions that I had to get myself deputized a marshal. That"s your job."
"I know it is, Mr. Timpey," Scallen said, and smiled, though it was an effort. "But I want to make sure no one knows Jim Kidd"s in Contention until after train time this afternoon."
Jim Kidd had been looking from one to the other with a faintly amused grin. Now he said to Timpey, "He means he"s afraid somebody"s going to jump him." He smiled at Scallen. "That marshal must"ve really sold you a bill of goods."
"What"s he talking about?" Timpey said.
Kidd went on before Scallen could answer. "They hid me in the Huachuca lockup "cause they knew n.o.body could get at me there ...and finally the Bisbee marshal gets a plan. He and some others hopped the train in Benson last night, heading for Yuma with an army prisoner pa.s.sed off as me." Kidd laughed, as if the idea were ridiculous.
"Is that right?" Timpey said.
Scallen nodded. "Pretty much right."
"How does he know all about it?"
"He"s got ears and ten fingers to add with."
"I don"t like it. Why just one man?"
"Every deputy from here down to Bisbee is out trying to scare up the rest of them. Jim here"s the only one we caught," Scallen explained-then added, "alive."
Timpey shot a glance at the outlaw. "Is he the one who killed d.i.c.k Moons?"
"One of the pa.s.sengers swears he saw who did it ...and he didn"t identify Kidd at the trial."
Timpey shook his head. "d.i.c.k drove for us a long time. You know his brother lives here in Contention. When he heard about it he almost went crazy." He hesitated, and then said again, "I don"t like it."
Scallen felt his patience wearing away, but he kept his voice even when he said, "Maybe I don"t either...but what you like and what I like aren"t going to matter a whole lot, with the marshal past Tucson by now. You can grumble about it all you want, Mr. Timpey, as long as you keep it under your breath. Jim"s got friends ...and since I have to haul him clear across the territory, I"d just as soon they didn"t know about it."
Timpey fidgeted nervously. "I don"t see why I have to get dragged into this. My job"s got nothing to do with law enforcement. . . ."
"You have the room key?"
"In the door. All I"m responsible for is the stage run between here and Tucson-"
Scallen shoved the Winchester at him. "If you"ll take care of this and the horses till I get back, I"ll be obliged to you...and I know I don"t have to ask you not to mention we"re at the hotel."
He waved the shotgun and nodded and Jim Kidd went ahead of him through the side door into the hotel lobby. Scallen was a stride behind him, holding the stubby shotgun close to his leg. "Up the stairs on the right, Jim."
Kidd started up, but Scallen paused to glance at the figure in the armchair near the front. He was sitting on his spine with limp hands folded on his stomach and, as Timpey had described, his hat low over the upper part of his face. You"ve seen people sleeping in hotel lobbies before, Scallen told himself, and followed Kidd up the stairs. He couldn"t stand and wonder about it.
Room 207 was narrow and high-ceilinged, with a single window looking down on Commercial Street. An iron bed was placed the long way against one wall and extended to the right side of the window, and along the opposite wall was a dresser with washbasin and pitcher and next to it a rough-board wardrobe. An unpainted table and two straight chairs took up most of the remaining s.p.a.ce.
"Lay down on the bed if you want to," Scallen said.
"Why don"t you sleep?" Kidd asked. "I"ll hold the shotgun."
The deputy moved one of the straight chairs near to the door and the other to the side of the table opposite the bed. Then he sat down, resting the shotgun on the table so that it pointed directly at Jim Kidd sitting on the edge of the bed near the window.
He gazed vacantly outside. A patch of dismal sky showed above the frame buildings across the way, but he was not sitting close enough to look directly down onto the street. He said, indifferently, "I think it"s going to rain."
There was a silence, and then Scallen said, "Jim, I don"t have anything against you personally . . . this is what I get paid for, but I just want it understood that if you start across the seven feet between us, I"m going to pull both triggers at once-without first asking you to stop. That clear?"
Kidd looked at the deputy marshal, then his eyes drifted out the window again. "It"s kinda cold too." He rubbed his hands together and the three chain links rattled against each other. "The window"s open a crack. Can I close it?"
Scallen"s grip tightened on the shotgun and he brought the barrel up, though he wasn"t aware of it. "If you can reach it from where you"re sitting."
Kidd looked at the windowsill and said without reaching toward it, "Too far."
"All right," Scallen said, rising. "Lay back on the bed." He worked his gun belt around so that now the Colt was on his left hip.
Kidd went back slowly, smiling. "You don"t take any chances, do you? Where"s your sporting blood?"
"Down in Bisbee with my wife and three youngsters," Scallen told him without smiling, and moved around the table.
There were no grips on the window frame. Standing with his side to the window, facing the man on the bed, he put the heel of his hand on the bottom ledge of the frame and shoved down hard. The window banged shut and with the slam he saw Jim Kidd kicking up off of his back, his body straining to rise without his hands to help. Momentarily, Scallen hesitated and his finger tensed on the trigger. Kidd"s feet were on the floor, his body swinging up and his head down to lunge from the bed. Scallen took one step and brought his knee up hard against Kidd"s face.
The outlaw went back across the bed, his head striking the wall. He lay there with his eyes open looking at Scallen.
"Feel better now, Jim?"
Kidd brought his hands up to his mouth, working the jaw around. "Well, I had to try you out," he said. "I didn"t think you"d shoot."
"But you know I will the next time."
For a few minutes Kidd remained motionless. Then he began to pull himself straight. "I just want to sit up."
Behind the table Scallen said, "Help yourself." He watched Kidd stare out the window.
Then, "How much do you make, Marshal?" Kidd asked the question abruptly.
"I don"t think it"s any of your business."
"What difference does it make?"
Scallen hesitated. "A hundred and fifty a month," he said, finally, "some expenses, and a dollar bounty for every arrest against a Bisbee ordinance in the town limits."
Kidd shook his head sympathetically. "And you got a wife and three kids."