CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Well, I got no reason to doubt what you and Broussard told us about them Rathmores, Mrs. Talbot,” Dave Quarrels said. “So my question is for you, Johnny . . . what the hell do we do now?”
“Do?” Teague said. “We pickax our way into the rock and see if the gold vein is really disappearing. That’s one thing we can do. Only I’m not about to fight a war with them Rathmores to do it.”
“So what the hell do we do now, Johnny?” Quarrels repeated.
“Head back to east Texas and take up our profession again,” Teague said. “We cut our teeth in the bank- and train-robbing business. That’s where we belong.”
“We’ll need to hire more men,” Quarrels said.
“I know Brad Ward and Mitch Mills are still around,” Teague said. “Those fellers are train specialists, especially Mills, but he’s a cantankerous cuss when he’s in drink.”
“And he can be quick to go to the trigger,” Slim Porter said. “Remember he shot Danny Elliot that time for laughing at his new top hat.”
“Good man, though, Mitch,” Townes Pierce said. “Dependable, and he never demands more than his fair share. Got a widowed sister in Fort Worth that he supports. Her name’s Mildred, I think.”
“Gentlemen, the Lucky Cuss wasn’t much to begin with, and now it’s played out,” Luna Talbot said. “We three are here for two reasons. One is that I want to even the score with the animal who calls himself Papa Mace—”
“And the other is that we want to rescue two men from his clutches before he kills them,” Broussard said.
“And that would that be the stage driver and the shotgun guard,” Quarrels said.
“It would,” Broussard said. “I set store by them.”
“With all that in mind, I have a proposition for you and your men, Mr. Teague,” Luna said.
“I’m listening,” Teague said.
“Help us, and I’ll give each of you a hundred dollars,” Luna said.
“What kind of help?”
“It won’t be easy,” Luna said. “I’ve told you how savage the Rathmores are.”
“What kind of help?” Teague repeated.
“Mrs. Talbot means gun help, Johnny,” Broussard said. “There’s no way around the matter. It will all come down to a shooting scrape.”
Suddenly Teague looked serious. “I got burned, Arman, burned bad. Now I’m wary. I’ve turned cautious and kinda lost my taste for gunfighting.”
“How burned?” Broussard said.
“Had it out with four wolfers. I didn’t think it would come to a gunfight, but they fooled me. I lost five good men that day. I got burned bad.” Teague shook his head. “And it was a yellow butterfly lost me those men. Don’t that beat all?”
“With or without the butterfly, the fight would’ve happened anyway, Johnny,” Quarrels said. “Arch Storm wanted the women. Simple as that.”
Juan Sanchez listened and then said, “The Sioux and the Blackfoot say the butterfly brings luck and will not allow it to be killed. Maybe some good will come of this, I think.”
“Of course it will. Mr. Teague, a man in your line of work can expect to get burned now and then,” Luna said. “Jesse James got burned at Northfield, but he hired more men and kept on going. Sure, the new men he hired were trash, but you can do better.”
“Ward and Mills are good men, Johnny,” Quarrels said. “They’re mighty rough in speech and deed, but they ain’t trash like Bob Ford and Charlie Pitts and them.”
“Mrs. Talbot, do you have a plan in mind for them Rathmores?” Teague said.
Before she answered, Luna took a sip of coffee and then carefully laid the cup on the ground beside her. “I have no clever plan. We just hit them hard, go in with guns blazing, and kill them all. But leave Papa Mace to me.”
“After what you told us about him, I’ve a mind to gun him myself,” Porter said.
“Well, Mr. Teague, do we have a deal?” Luna said.
“We can’t do anything until sunup,” Teague said. “Until then I’ll study on it for a spell. I got burned. I have scars, Mrs. Talbot, deep scars.”
“Yes, I know you have burn scars,” Luna said. “One way or another we’ve all been burned, Mr. Teague.”
The drizzle had long stopped, and the clouds melted into starlight.
“Someday you’ll have to tell me about the butterfly, Johnny,” Broussard said.
“But not tonight. I’ve got some thinking to do.”
* * *
On the eastern side of the Cornudas Mountains another man was deep in thought.
Sleepless, Ben Kane lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling. The rain had stopped, and the moon was high in the sky, adding points of crystal light to the water drops that dripped from the roof of the ranch house.
He had no illusions about what the dawn would bring. He would conduct a massacre, a mass slaughter that would remove the loathsome Rathmores from the face of the earth and end the pestilence that had for too long threatened to destroy his ranch
In the pearly gloom his eyes were drawn to the portrait of his wife, dead these two years. Martha had been a gentle soul and she’d abhorred violence of any kind. Even when he and the hands had fought Apaches, she’d cried over the Indian dead. Martha would not approve of what was to happen come morning.
“Ben,” she’d say, “you must find common ground with the Rathmores. Let us have peace, not war.”
Kane asked himself why, at this late stage, was his conscience troubling him?
Of course he knew the answer.
In his time he’d killed many men. He’d shot them, hanged them, dragged them behind horses until their flesh ripped from their bones . . . but women and children . . . he’d never in his life killed a woman or harmed a child.
Kane got out of bed, took his Colt from the holster on the table beside him, and stepped to the window. The wheels were already in motion and there was no stopping them. The hands would assemble at dawn, heavily armed, and Dave Sloan and a few others would push it, wanting it done. Anse Dryden, a decent man with quiet eyes, would go along with the rest.
The old man gazed out at the still, moonlit night and the deep, almost mystical shadows by the corrals, the bunkhouse, the outbuilding. They were made dark by darker memories.
Dead men. Skinned cowboys. The bloody bodies of hard-rock miners pretending to be gunmen. Hanged rustlers, piss running down their kicking legs, tongues sticking out of mouths with ashen lips . . . all the black memories of the passing years from which shadows were made.
Ben Kane turned his head and looked at the portrait on the wall. “I don’t want to do this any longer, Martha. I’ve lived too long at war. I want peace. I need to close my eyes and sleep.”
And Martha said, “Then sleep, Ben. Good night, my old friend.”
Kane smiled. “Good night, Martha.”
He clicked back the hammer, shoved the muzzle of the Colt into his mouth, and pulled the trigger.