Beneath Ceaseless Skies #13 Page 3

  “John Marwood.” I had other names, but he wouldn’t be able to pronounce them. Sometimes even I couldn’t remember them all.

  “I waited for you, son. I called...but you didn’t get here fast enough. This moment...in time....”

  I felt as if I were showered with ice.

  “Maybe you can help her instead, Marwood, if you’ve a mind. My daughter, I mean.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “Thank you for the water. At least you tried.” His head fell back. “Did I tell you it snowed the day she was born?” He gave a long, trembling sigh as if he remembered that day. With a sudden jerk his body slumped forward.

  He was dead.

  I cut him down and buried him in the shade of the hackberry tree. The sky was purpling in the east when I placed the last stone on top of his grave. An hour of daylight remained. The stirrup leather creaked when I mounted up. It was the only sound in the desert and it carried like a scream.

  * * *

  Through an endless sea of time and dust, in places that might never be, or can’t become until something is set right, there are people destined to travel. Forever.

  I am one.

  We go where we’re needed. We have names and we stand against that which must be faced.

  I had been called here by the dead man. I would serve his wish until I was successful or I died. There was no distinction. For me, and others like me, the two were often the same.

  * * *

  I rode into Haxan, remembering the old man. He was at rest now, but it took a lot of hate to do something like that to another human being.

  I knew what that was like, carrying that much hate around until it blew you apart with dry, quiet winds.

  Haxan wasn’t much of a town. There was a railhead spur, a long front street bordered by weathered saloons and hotels, and several painted store-fronts. The livery stable was across the wide-open plaza where a central stone well had been dug, surrounded by mesquite benches.

  There weren’t many people around. It was still too hot. I found the mayor’s office and went inside. It was cooler here, but only by a couple of degrees.

  A blue-eyed man with balding red hair looked up from his paperwork. His hands were split by hard work and fishhooks and his face wasn’t much kinder. “Can I help you, stranger?”

  “I’m John Marwood. The War Department sent me.”

  He came from around his desk and we shook. “Glad to meet you, John. Or should I say, U.S. Marshall? My name is Frank Polgar. I half-expected you to come in on the eleven o’clock stage this morning.”

  “I bought a horse in Las Cruces yesterday and rode in. Wanted to get a feel for the countryside.”

  “Good idea. How do you like the territory so far?”

  “Not much. I found a dead man five miles south of here, nailed to a tree.”

  Polgar’s eyebrows came together. “Who was he?”

  “He didn’t give his name.”

  Polgar watched me with studied care. “The Navajo are on reservation and peaceful. Apaches, maybe. They get stirred up by the Army once in a blue moon.”

  “I don’t think so.” I fished one of the iron spikes out of my grey duster and tossed it down on Polgar’s desk. “Not unless the Apache have taken to pounding railroad spikes into people. It’s been my experience they’re more civilized than that.”

  Polgar picked it up and rolled it thoughtfully between his brown fingers. “What are you trying to say, Marshall?”

  “Just this. I’ve been in Haxan ten minutes and I already have one murder to solve.”

  * * *

  Polgar showed me the Marshall’s office down the street. Inside was a desk covered with outdated circulars, a bench under the window, an iron stove in one corner with a rusted coffee pot, and a yellowed map of the county nailed to the wall. The rifle rack was empty, but the cells in back were well-oiled and the keys fit the locks.

  “I know it’s not much,” Polgar apologized, “but as long as you keep your appointment with the War Department you’ll have room and board at the Haxan Hotel. Are you hungry? Hew Clay and his wife own the place. Hew serves a good beefsteak.”

  “Not now.” I put my Sharps rifle in the gun rack. It looked lonely there.

  “John, the only person who fits your description of a Swede is old Shiner Larsen. Hard to believe he’s dead. He had a mesquite shack on the edge of town. Kept mostly to himself...while he was alive.”

  “Larsen have any family? He mentioned a daughter, but he was out of his head.”

  Polgar rapped a hard knuckle against the map rather than answer my question. “Sangre County. Wild and dangerous, all four thousand square miles.” He paused with significance. “You know what Sangre means, don’t you?”

  “I do.” Sometimes the very name of a place was strong enough to draw us in.

  “John, this county is aptly named. This is a bloody place to live. In Texas, because of the war, cattle are four dollars a head. They can be sold north for twenty. That brings money to Haxan, but it also brings gamblers, drifters and our share of soiled doves.”

  “You avoided my question about Larsen’s family, Frank.”

  He made a pacifying gesture. “There’s some unhappy history here, and people know that history. It frightens them.”

  “Why don’t they leave?”

  “Too much money to be had. Twenty years ago Haxan was nothing more than a sun-baked shack in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Shiner Larsen’s place.”

  “That’s right. Then the railroad built a spur to handle the big cattle drives from El Paso. We get people drifting south from the Santa Fe trail and others going north. A lot of traffic comes through Haxan and it brings money. It keeps us going.”

  “What’s the unhappy history?”

  “Shiner Larsen came over from Sweden twenty years ago today. When he settled here he named the place Haxan. Haxan is a Swedish name for witches.”

  The long purple shadows inched down the street outside my window. Someone lighted a cooking fire in one of the buildings across the way. I could see black shadows moving around inside, but not much else.

  “Was Larsen a witch?”

  “People thought so, like our town dentist. Others believed he was just crazy.”

  “How so?”

  “Larsen held there were places on earth where the spirits were tied in knots and couldn’t move apart. He claimed Haxan was one of the places.”

  “If it was so bad why did he settle here?”

  “I asked him. He said life was like flipping pages in a book. It was a blur until you stuck your finger out and read what was there. Larsen believed he could read what was in the rocks and water and air. I heard him say it was probable Sangre County didn’t exist in some men’s thoughts, but that it was here now because it had to be. And when Haxan needed it the right spirits would come to protect what was worth protecting. Well, he was always talking nonsense. Like I said, people ignored him.”

  “But this time someone didn’t.”

  “People are superstitious, John. They’ll do anything that makes ‘em feel better. Even murder.” He sighed. “I want you to be aware of the toes you might step on, that’s all. But I want his killer caught, too. Doesn’t look good if something like this goes unpunished.”

  “Larsen’s family?”

  “He married a Navajo woman when he came to the territory. They had a daughter. His wife died three years later. Last I heard, the girl was grown and living on the reservation.”

  “She have a name?”

  “Shiner called her Snowberry. Magra Snowberry.”

  * * *

  Shiner Larsen’s home wasn’t much more than a broken down hovel with a dirt roof. It was on a small rise where the creek turned through a field of tumbled boulders. There were a few rows of planted maize for the shoat penned behind the house, but not much else in the way of prosperity.

  I let my horse stand and walked up on the house. The sun was down and the sky pocked with stars.
There were so many of them it made me feel small.

  When I stepped on the porch the front door swung open a crack and the twin barrels of a shotgun centered onto my stomach.

  “What do you want?”

  “My name is John Marwood. I’m a U.S. Marshall. I’m here about your father.”

  “My father is dead.”

  “Yes, I know. I’m the one who found him.”

  “Step back so I can look at you.” She was standing in the half-dark, but there was enough starlight bouncing off the desert floor to make her out. She had long raven hair tied back with a bit of packing string. She wore a heavy Union coat and buckskin skirt that fell below her knees. She was pretty, but only in that hard way the New Mexico desert makes people.

  “You must be Magra Snowberry.”

  The twin bores of the shotgun never wavered. “And you must be that new lawman they said was coming. Marwood. I heard people talking about you. Said you worked a lot of bad towns up north in the Montana Territory. Killed men, a lot of men.”

  “Only when they needed killing.”

  “I recognized you right away. Papa said you would be wearing a grey duster and carrying a Colt Dragoon with a yellow-bone handle, holstered crossways.”

  This took me aback. “Your father—”

  “Papa had visions,” she explained. “I don’t expect you to understand his ways.”

  The eastern horizon sparked yellow fire. The moon was rising fast, owning the desert. There was enough light to see she had been crying.

  “Maybe I do understand, Magra. More than you think.”

  “I doubt that.” She raised the shotgun and parked the heavy stock on her hip. “What are you doing here?”

  “I want to find the men who killed your father.”

  “What is his life to you?”

  “Law says they have to be punished.”

  She looked me up and down. “And you’re the law.”

  “I am now.”

  She thought for a minute before she swung the door open. “All right, come in.”

  There wasn’t much room inside. The mesquite walls were more like a cage than a home. She set the shotgun aside and lighted an oil lamp swinging from a rafter hook. The feeble glow cast awkward shadows on our faces and the packed-dirt floor.

  “I have coffee.”

  “No, thank you. I’d rather talk about your father.”

  Her shrug was lost inside the large Union coat with carpetbag patches on the elbows. “Papa was a good man but he had a lot of Old Country superstitions. People didn’t understand what he could see around us, and sometimes when they weren’t laughing, they got scared.” She watched me with her large, dark eyes. “You said you understood. I’m not sure I believe that.”

  There was a chair at the rough-hewn table. I pulled it out and sat down. “Magra, it’s hard to explain, but I’ll try.”

  She sat on the other side of the table, her hands folded. “I’m listening.”

  “Your father was right about some things. This world—and everything you see around you and everything you can’t see—is like a vast sea made up of crests and troughs. Sometimes a wave raises a person high enough and he can see a long way. I think your father was one of those people. Other times, you’re stuck down at the bottom of a wave where the bad things collect. I think that might be Haxan. And through this sea of time and dust, in places that might never be or can’t become until something is finally set right, there are people destined to travel. Forever.”

  “Papa talked about wandering Norse spirits. The Navajo, my people, believe in skinwalkers.”

  “No, I’m talking about real people. Flesh and blood like you and me. They’re taken from places they call home and sent into this stormy sea to help calm the waters. It never ends because it’s the storm itself, the unending conflict, that makes the world we know a reality. Along with all the other worlds that could be.”

  I had to give her credit. I suppose she was used to hearing wild talk from her father. Whether she believed it or not was another question.

  “Marshall, how was my father killed?”

  “Someone nailed him to a tree with railroad spikes.”

  She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again she looked older. “Why would anyone do that to Papa?”

  “If they thought he was a witch, it stands to reason. A witch can be killed with cold iron.”

  “Papa wasn’t a witch. He was only different.”

  “I know that, but the people who killed him thought otherwise. Did your father have enemies?”

  “Not outright. Like I said, people were wary of him, but that’s all.”

  “Scared people do bad things, Magra.”

  She shook her head. “I can’t think of anyone who would want to kill him.”

  “That’s because you were used to his ways.” I stood up. “You can’t stay here. Whoever killed him is likely to come after you next.”

  “Why?”

  “If they believed Larsen was a witch they’ll think you might have his powers, being his daughter.” Maybe you can help her instead, Marwood, I thought, if you’ve a mind.

  “I was going back to the reservation tomorrow.”

  “They’re probably looking for you there now. You can stay in the Haxan House until I run these men down.”

  She let out a dry laugh. “Marshall, Hew Clay’s wife won’t let a half-breed sleep under her roof. You don’t know Alma Jean. Anyway, I don’t have any money.”

  “Then you can stay in my office. You’ll be safe there.”

  “That wouldn’t look right, either. People might talk.”

  “Look, I’m not here to make people like me. Tomorrow morning I’m going back to that hackberry tree, see if I can’t cut their trail.”

  “You’re going to track them down? Alone?”

  “Have to.”

  “When you find these men...what are you going to do?”

  “Law says they have to be tried. If they’re found guilty they’ll be taken to Santa Fe and hanged.”

  “Yes, but what are you going to do?” she asked.

  “That’s my business. Now take what you need for a couple of days and nothing else.”

  “I don’t have a horse.”

  “My blue roan can carry us both.” I picked up the break-action shotgun and opened the breech. It was filled with buckshot: killing loads. “You know how to use this?”

  “Papa taught me. He never used it for hunting, only protection.”

  “Too bad he didn’t have it with him.” I snapped the breech closed and handed it back. “Keep it. You’re likely to need it before this is over.”

  * * *

  While riding in I asked Magra about her name. “I have a foot in two worlds, Marshall,” she said. “One white, the other Navajo. Papa said I should be proud of both, even if neither one wanted me.”

  “He was right, you should be proud.”

  “When Papa came from Sweden he had a little money saved. When I got old enough he sent me East to a boarding school. They didn’t want me, either, but I learned how to read and write. Now I teach children on the reservation.”

  Her words got me to thinking about my past. What there was to remember. “How did you hear about your father’s death? I found him a couple of hours before I met you. No one in town could have told you in time.”

  “He came to me in a dream two days ago. He wasn’t one for writing letters. So he night-walked sometimes to let me know how he was doing. He told me he was preparing to die. I raced back home to see if I could help but I was too late. The house was empty.” She fell silent for a bit. “Why don’t you ask me what you want to ask, Marshall?”

  We rode on for a bit. “All right, I will. What did your father say about me?”

  “That one day you would come to Haxan because it was a center of things. Because a man like you had to be here, in one way or another.”

  We didn’t talk after that. After a while she rested her chin on my shoulder while we
rode back to town.

  After getting Magra settled I played a hunch and rode over to the livery stable. The night man told me he had rented out a two-seat buckboard with team three days ago.

  “Fellow by the name of Connie Rand picked up the wagon. Had a couple of men with him. I didn’t recognize them, though.”

  “You know this man?”

  “Yes, sir. Conrad Rand. Tall man with white blond hair. People call him Connie, though he doesn’t like that name much. He done something wrong, Marshall?”

  “What does he do, this Rand?”

  “Not much. Hires out during the week on the big ranches and drinks his wages on the weekend.”

  “And the two men with Rand. Can you describe them?”

  “Not so good, Marshall. They kept down the street a ways with the sun behind them. But I can describe their horses. I’ve got an eye for horses, even when the sun’s against me. One rode a bay with three black points. The other was mounted on a sorrel mare.”

  I made arrangements to keep my horse for the night and rounded the plaza on foot. It was Tuesday so there wasn’t much doing in the saloons. A little bit of music trickled out of one and played around in the night air with a woman’s laugh before they both died out. I checked the horses out front but didn’t see a bay or a sorrel.

  I went to the Haxan House and had supper. Magra was right, Alma Jean Clay had a mean, pinched face. Her husband was a little nicer. He said Magra could sleep in the stock room, behind the kitchen.

  “Girl can’t help being what she’s born, Marshall. She can stay long as she pays full price. That’ll keep Alma quiet.”

  “Fair enough. Bill my office and I’ll see you get paid.”

  After eating I brought back food and water for Magra. I found her asleep on the cot in back. She had turned her Union coat backward and was using it as a blanket. I locked the office tight and walked back to the Haxan House at the end of the road. It had been a long day. I was tired.

  “Marshall!”

  I turned. A boy, eight or nine, was running up the wooden sidewalk. “Mayor Polgar told me to find you. There’s a fire out at the edge of town. Two men are dead. Says you better get out there fast.”

  “What’s your name, boy?”

  “Davie Peake. My friends call me Piebald seeing as how I got this marking on my—”