Chapter Thirty-two
Jacob O’Brien returned to Dromore wearing a dead man’s bearskin coat so odiferous Lorena made him leave it outside.
“And take a bath at the earliest opportunity,” she said. “You’ve probably picked up fleas.”
Samuel stood aside in the hallway as his wife flounced past him. “Lorena chiding you again, brother Jake?”
“She didn’t like my coat. It does smell bad, but it’s warm.”
“What happened out there? You left before I knew what was happening.”
Jacob told him and then asked, “How is the woman?”
“She’s hurt badly, but she’ll live.”
“The colonel?”
“Walking. He’s still stiff and sore, but he wants to walk everywhere. Luther is at his wit’s end trying to slow him down.”
“Pa is game.”
“He’s all of that.”
“I’m hungry.” Jacob rubbed his belly.
“I’ll ask the kitchen to send a meal to your room, let you get cleaned up first.”
Jacob shook his head. “No, just have them sack up some grub. I need a fresh horse and then I’m headed for Santa Fe to try and get a lead on Shawn.”
“Jake, that’s a wild-goose chase. He could be anywhere by now.”
“Maybe so, but I’m going to try.”
“You sound flat,” Samuel said, his face concerned. “The black dog stalking you again?”
Jake nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. Killing a man always depresses me, seems like.”
“A killing weighs heavy on any man.”
“I guess so.” Jacob turned to the door. “Bring the grub, Sam, and my mackinaw.”
“Don’t you want to talk to the colonel first?”
“No. Just tell him where I’m headed.”
Before Samuel could speak again, Jacob stepped outside into cold and snow.
In the barn, he saddled a yellow mustang, a mean, ugly little horse that would carry a man all day and into the next. He turned when he heard footsteps behind him.
“You’re leaving us again, Jacob,” Shamus was alone and carried a sack of supplies and a ragged mackinaw.
“I’m going after Shawn, Pa.”
“It’s a cold trail, son.”
“I know it. But I reckon I’ll try.” Jacob smiled. “You’re getting around, Colonel.”
“Like my grandson, I toddle here and there. We run races, you know, him and me. Do you have money?”
“Enough, I reckon.”
Shamus reached into the pocket of his sheepskin and produced five double eagles. “Take this. You may need it.”
Jacob knew better than to argue and took the money. “Thank you, Colonel.” He hesitated, then said, “A dying man cursed me, Pa. Me and my brothers.”
“And this troubles you?”
“Considerably.”
“Then I will pray to Our Lady for his poor soul,” Shamus said, crossing himself.
“You don’t fear a curse?”
“No, I don’t. The good Lord protects us from such things, though He expects us to pray for those who cursed us.”
Shamus reached into his pocket again. “Take this. Remove your hat so I may put it around your neck.”
Jacob bent his head and Shamus placed the rosary around his neck. “These were your sainted mother’s beads and they will protect you. Put your trust in them.”
Jacob nodded. “I sure will, Pa.” He tied the sack of supplies to the saddle, then mounted. After the mustang tried to buck him off a few times he settled down and Jacob rode to the barn door.
“Jacob,” Shamus called after him. “Bring me back my son.”
The dark day was shading into darker evening when Jacob rode into Santa Fe, a town with plenty of snap. People, bundled up for the most part, thronged the street. Vendors were doing a good business, especially those who sold hot food. Corn tortillas wrapped around beef or chicken seasoned with peppers that scorched the tongue and could make a strong man break out in tears were particularly popular.
The saloons and dance halls were booming and tinpanny pianos, their notes all tangled together in knots, competed one with another for the chance to be heard in the street.
Cold, with snow on his shoulders and hat from a hard trail, Jacob badly wanted a whiskey, but postponed that pleasure until he put up his horse. He stopped a passerby and asked where the livery stable was, learning there were two. One was farther up the street, the other closer, but around the corner.
Jacob chose the closer one and led the mustang inside.
A stringy, sour-faced old man wearing a battered Reb kepi and a mackinaw even more ragged than Jacob’s stepped out of his office and greeted him warmly. “Two bits for hay, two bits for a scoop of oats, an’ I count the scoops in the sack, mind. Anybody I catch cheatin’ gets shot.”
“Then I guess I’ll want two,” Jacob said, grinning. “This here hoss is mighty hungry.”
“Then I’ll charge you extry an’ if you can’t pay is when I introduce you to a Greener scattergun that’s both wife and child to me.” The old man stared at Jacob. “What you got in your poke?”
“Grub.”
“Hell boy, there’s plenty grub in Santa Fe.” The oldster gave Jacob a measuring look. “Unless you’re dead broke.”
“I plan to ride on at first light. Figured I might need the grub.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Sure is.” Jacob gave the hostler some coins. “I figure that will cover the hay and the oats.”
“Two scoops, mind.”
“I’m not likely to forget.”
“That there’s a grain-fed hoss,” the old man said. “I figure you an’ him has seen better days.”
Jacob smiled. “Yup, old-timer, you might be right about that.”
Jacob forked hay for the mustang and added oats and got a painful kick in the shin for his troubles.
When he returned to the front of the barn, the old-timer said, “Got coffee on the bile, if’n you’re interested, young feller. If you ain’t, the best place for whiskey and women is the Lucky Lady Saloon just down the street a piece.”
“Coffee sounds good,” Jacob said. “Then whiskey. As for the women, some other time I guess.”
“Then pour yourself a cup.” The old man motioned with his head. “In the office there.”
When Jacob came back the oldster pushed a wooden box close to him with his foot. “Set, if you’ve a mind to.”
“Don’t mind if I do. I’m inclined to take a load off.” Grateful, Jacob sat down on the box.
“Name’s Miles Marshwood. I’m the proprietor of this establishment.”
“And a fine one it is, too,” Jacob said, lighting a cigarette.
“What brings you to Santa Fe? If it ain’t any of my business, just say. By times I’m a talking man, you understand.”
“I’m looking for a man.”
Marshwood nodded. “Figured you fer some kind of lawman. Seems that every lawman I ever knowed had a big beak like your’n. Helps ’em smell out badmen, I guess.”
Jacob smiled and shook his head. “I’m not a lawman. I’m looking for my brother. His name’s Shawn O’Brien.”
The oldster was surprised. “Here now, is he a well setup young feller, smiles a lot, and rides with crazy old Uriah Tweedy the bear hunter?”
“I don’t know Tweedy, but it sounds like Shawn.”
“How come neither of you favor your pa?”
“I don’t know. My brother Pat does, but I’m the ugly one of the family.”
Marshwood nodded. “Saw that right off my ownself.”
“Do you know where Shawn is?” Jacob asked.
The old man’s eyes darted to the door, then he said, “You didn’t hear this from me, understand?”
“I didn’t hear you say a word.” Jacob waited for Marshwood to gather his thoughts and speak again.
“The feller who owns the Lucky Lady saloon goes by the name of Zeb Moss. Now it seems like he had your brother’s woman, a gal named Trixie Lee who oncet worked for Zeb at the Lucky Lady.”
Jacob waited a few moments for more. When it didn’t come, he asked impatiently, “Well?”
“Well, Zeb took off with her, or so Willie Wide Awake says.”
“Who the hell is he?”
“Willie never sleeps, stays awake the whole time. That is he did, until your brother gave him money to go see a doctor about his problem. The doc gave Willie sleeping powders, and now he sleeps all the time.” The old man sighed. “We don’t call him Willie Wide Awake no more.”
“Where did he go, this Moss?” Jacob said.
“South, that’s all I know. Willie said Zeb pulled out of town with a wagon and half a dozen hired toughs. Includin’ Silas Creeds, an’ he’s a bad one.”
“Heard of him,” Jacob said. “Did Willie have any idea where Moss was headed?”
“No. South was all he knew.”
“Why would Moss leave his saloon and light a shuck with Shawn’s woman?”
“I don’t know. But he surely did.”
“How long ago?”
“A week, I guess. It’s hard to keep track of time around here.”
“Would anyone at the Lucky Lady know where Moss was headed?”
“Maybe. But a man could sure get hisself shot fer askin’.”
Jacob rose to his feet. “I’m asking.”
“Suit yourself, young feller. Is there anybody I can send your hoss an’ traps to when you don’t come back?”
“Keep them,” Jacob said. “They’re yours, on account of how you’re such a sweet-natured old cuss and make such lousy coffee.”
“Hell, boy, coffee always tastes good when it’s free.”
Jacob settled his gun belt in place and stepped to the door.
“One thing, young feller,” Marshwood added “I hear that a ranny from Arabia visited the Lucky Lady pretty frequent before Zeb left.”
“Arabia!” Jacob exclaimed. “Where the hell is Arabia?”
“Overseas, boy. It’s a foreign country where them Arabs an’ their camels live.” The old man shrugged. “Thought I’d tell you fer what it’s worth.”
“It isn’t worth much,” Jacob said.
“No, I reckon not, but I figgered I’d tell you anyhow.”
Jacob bought a drink at the Lucky Lady and then, as casually as he could, asked after the whereabouts of Zeb Moss. Coming from a tall, hard-featured man wearing shotgun chaps and a mackinaw open to reveal a high-carried gun, the question was not easy to take. He was met with blank faces or calculating, silent stares of men who looked mean enough to have been up a dozen outlaw trails and back.
After an hour, Jacob realized he was deadheading on a track to nowhere.
He decided to go with the prevailing wind and said, friendly like, to one of the four bartenders on duty, “No piano player tonight?”
“Sick. Seems like he’s always down with something.”
“Mind if I tickle the ivories?”
“Why not? Everybody else does.”
Realizing there were some mighty hard eyes on him, Jacob sat at the piano, played a riff, and was pleasantly surprised the ornate Chickering grand was in tune. It had been a while, and he took sensual pleasure in the silken feel of the keys under his fingertips as though he was caressing the neck of a beautiful woman. With his black depression weighing on him like a damp cloak, he began to play Chopin’s Nocturne in C-sharp minor, a beautiful piece initially clouded by the same darkness and inner tension possessing him.
Western men and women, even the hardcases in the Lucky Lady, had an appreciation for music, and a quiet settled on the saloon, broken only by the clink of glasses and the thud-thud of the saloon girls’ high heels on the timber floor.
When Jacob reached the middle passage of the nocturne leading into a more exultant mood before the chordal section expanded into a moment of fleeting happiness, a slim, pretty Mexican woman in a yellow silk dress stood by the piano, her eyes fixed on his long-fingered hands.
The piece ended and with it Jacob’s depression fled and he glanced up at the woman. Her face was enraptured, captivated by the soul of the composer. Jacob expected her to say something, but to his surprise she threw herself into his arms and hugged him close. He felt her hand slip into the top pocket of his mackinaw, and then she was gone.
The bartender ambled over to the piano and handed Jacob a glass of deep amber whiskey. “You can play here anytime, mister. This one’s on the house.”
Jacob returned to the bar with his drink, uncomfortably aware that he was the center of attention, men and women staring at him as they tried to figure who and what manner of man he was.
After a decent interval, he left the saloon and took to the boardwalk. Halfway to the livery stable, when he was walking past a darkened dry goods store, a rifle shot hammered through the night. The bullet plowed into the brim of his hat, kept on going, and punched a small circle in the store window.
Jacob sprinted to the end of the boardwalk just a few yards beyond the store and dived for the shadows in the alley. He rolled away from the entrance as two more probing shots buzzed over him like angry hornets.
People were yelling and feet pounded in the street. Somewhere a man yelled, “Here, that won’t do!” and another voice cried, “Get the sheriff!”
Jacob had a deep distrust of lawmen and the last thing he wanted was to answer a bunch of fool questions. He rose to his feet and was relieved to see that no one was looking in his direction as overly excited people ran around like headless chickens.
Keeping to the shadows he made his way back to the livery and left the hubbub behind him.
Miles Marshwood stood at the stable door. “What’s all the shooting about?”
“Beats me.” Jacob shrugged his shoulders.
“You got mud on you.”
“I tripped. Drank too much, I guess.”
Under his ragged mustache, Marshwood’s mouth pruned in disapproval. “Sonny, in my time I seen more drunk men than I care to remember. You’re not drunk or even close.”
“All right then. Somebody took a shot at me.”
“Who?”
“Hell if I know. It’s dark out there.”
“Was you askin’ too many questions at the Lucky Lady?”
“Just one too many, about Zeb Moss. So, yeah, I guess I did.”
“I warned you, didn’t I? Did you get any answers?”
“No. But a gal in the saloon tried to pick my pocket.”
“She get your poke?”
“I don’t keep money here.” Jacob’s fingers strayed to the pocket of his mackinaw. He heard a brief crinkle of paper. “Hey, maybe she gave me money.”
But it wasn’t a banknote. The wrinkled scrap of paper had a single word written on it. SONORA.
Marshwood looked over Jacob’s shoulder. “Hell, boy, that’s in Old Mexico. Why would she write that?”
“Maybe it’s where Zeb Moss was headed . . . and probably my brother.”
“I’d guess that little gal at the saloon likes you.”
“I doubt it.” Jacob said. “More likely she doesn’t like what Moss does to women.”
“Well, I can tell you this, young feller, Zeb Moss had no reason to head fer Sonora, no reason at all. Hell, boy, there’s nothing there but mountains and deserts. Seen it with my own eyes years ago, and I doubt if the place has improved since.”
“It’s the only lead I’ve got,” Jacob said. “And the woman risked her life to give me this paper. That means something.”
“Unless she wanted to throw you off the track.”
“Then why be so secretive about it? All she needed to say was that Zeb Moss is headed for Sonora and I would’ve believed her.”
“You’re rolling the dice, O’Brien. But hell, take the chance. You sure as hell ain’t going to get anywhere pokin’ around here. And next time the ranny who tries to bushwhack you won’t miss.”
Jacob stuck the note back in his pocket. “Where do I get a train for Sonora?”
The older man glanced at his watch. “There’s a flier leaves here for Albuquerque in an hour. From there you can catch a southbound on the Santa Fe line. I don’t know any better than that.”
“It’s enough. I’m beholden to you.” Jacob shook the hostler’s hand.
“Hell, you didn’t stay long.”
“Maybe too long.”