Part 2 (2/2)
The other deputies chuckled as Leo's face turned red behind his three-day growth of beard. With an injured expression, he stood, donned his hat, and hefted his rifle. As he brushed past Yakima, he cut a hard glance to the half-breed, then strode out the door and spat loudly under the brush arbor.
Yakima looked at the sheriff, then turned toward the door.
”Henry.”
Yakima swung back to Speares, who stood facing him, thumbs hooked behind his cartridge belt as he rose up and down on his boot toes. ”Make sure you're out of town by sundown. I don't want you breakin' up any more saloons.”
One of the remaining deputies chuckled and gave one corner of his waxed mustache a twist. ”I heard him and some Mex really tore apart the Saguaro Inn. Left a good bit of blood on the floor, too.”
Yakima kept his eyes on the sheriff. ”I'll be leavin' first thing in the morning-after I've bought the supplies I need.”
Speares slitted his left eye. ”Think so, do ya?”
Yakima splayed his fingers on his thigh, in front of the holstered, stag-b.u.t.ted Colt, and held the lawman's hard gaze. The deputies shuttled glances between Yakima and the sheriff. It was suddenly so quiet that the rat could be heard making soft snick-snick snick-snick sounds as it nibbled bread from the tin plate in the cell. sounds as it nibbled bread from the tin plate in the cell.
Speares smiled. ”I reckon it is is gettin' a mite late to be headin' back through 'Pache country. I'll relax my rules just this once. Just make sure you stay away from Charlier's. Understand?” gettin' a mite late to be headin' back through 'Pache country. I'll relax my rules just this once. Just make sure you stay away from Charlier's. Understand?”
Yakima kept his expression neutral, but he felt a devilishtingle. Normally, to avoid trouble, he would have done what the sheriff ordered. But he wasn't much in the mood for following orders. He shook his head.
”Can't do that neither, Sheriff. Miss Anjanette already offered me a drink. Standin' her up wouldn't be polite.”
One of the sitting deputies said slowly, ”Why, that smart-a.s.s-”
”Now, now, Charlie,” Speares said, lifting the corners of his mouth once more as he continued locking gazes with Yakima. ”No point in gettin' our fur up. Ain't healthy.” He reached into the breast pocket of his collarless pin-striped s.h.i.+rt and flipped a coin to Yakima, who grabbed it out of the air. ”First drink's on me, breed. We'll be seein' you later.”
Yakima flipped the nickel in his hand. ”Obliged.” Pocketing the coin, he stepped straight back out the door, then grabbed both sets of reins off the hitchrack and, keeping an eye on the sheriff in the jailhouse's dim interior, swung onto the black and pulled the two horses into the street.
In the jailhouse office, Speares watched the half-breed ride away, his heart thudding, his gut burning, then turned to the two deputies sitting tensely, staring at him curiously.
”Get the h.e.l.l out of here!” he barked. ”Be back at first light with those rifles loaded. We'll head from here to the bank. Do not-I repeat, do not do not-be late!”
The two men whom Speares had deputized an hour ago to help make sure the gold s.h.i.+pment made it from tomorrow's stage safely into the bank vault, lurched to their feet and filed quickly out the door.
When they were gone, Speares sagged into his chair. He continued staring at the empty doorway, his eyes stony, his lips bunched with fury, and slipped one of his long-barreled Remingtons from its cross-draw holster. He flicked open the Remy's loading gate, took a cartridge from a leather loop on his belt, and filled the chamber he normally kept empty beneath the hammer.
Speares cursed and spun the cylinder, then snapped around in his chair to face the cell directly behind him. Inside, the mule skinner, Kirby Yates, whom Speares had arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct at four o'clock in the morning, continued snoring loudly. Thumbing the Remington's hammer back, Speares extended the pistol straight out from his shoulder and fired through the bars of Yates's cell door.
The pistol report sounded like a cannon blast in the close quarters.
Both prisoners leapt up on their cots with startled grunts and groans. ”What the h.e.l.l was that that?” bellowed Yates, jerking his foot off the floor and craning his head toward his blood-splattered plate.
Speares lowered the smoking revolver and turned toward the door, holding the Remy in both hands as though weighing it.
”Rat,” Speares said as he flicked open the loading gate and removed the spent sh.e.l.l.
Chapter 4.
Yakima cut a look over his left shoulder as he angled across the street toward the Arizona Livery and Feed Barn. Mitch Speares had been an outlaw longer than he'd been a sheriff-it was widely known that the man had been a regulator in Wyoming and Colorado and was probably still wanted up that way-and Yakima knew he wasn't above trying to backshoot an adversary.
The sheriff did not appear in his open doorway, so Yakima rode the black up the livery barn's hay-covered ramp. He ducked under the heavy freight hook hanging from the loft and clomped on into the barn's shadows, which were thick with the smell of hay, manure, and livestock.
A voice rose from the darkness on his left. ”Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned. I figured you'd know enough to stay outta town after what happened last time.”
The liveryman ambled out of the shadows, a hay stem wedged in his big yellow teeth, his snakeskin galluses bowing over his bulging paunch. He held a worn bridle in his gloved hand. Scowling, he tipped his leather-billed immigrant cap off his freckled forehead.
”What happened last time wasn't my doin'.” Yakima slipped his Winchester from his saddle boot and slung his saddlebags over his right shoulder. ”Besides, I worked off my bill at the Saguaro Inn. Split enough wood to last 'em the next three winters.”
”That ain't what I'm talkin' about,” said the liveryman, whose name was Charlie Suggs. ”I'm talkin' about that Mex you fought. He sees you in town, he's gonna want some payback for cuttin' off his finger.”
”I'll give him one of mine. Feel better?” Yakima reached into a front pocket and flipped a gold piece in the air. ”One dollar in advance. I'll pick up both horses first thing in the morning.”
Suggs closed his fist around the coin and continued scowling at Yakima. ”You can find yourself an alley tonight, too. I don't want you in here. d.a.m.n it, Saber Creek is a civilized town, and uncivilized folk need to stay in the mountains where they belong.”
”That free?”
Suggs squinted and c.o.c.ked his head. ”Huh?”
”That advice free?”
The liveryman filled his lungs. His round bearded face turned red. ”Yeah, it's free!”
”Good, because I just came to have my horses stabled. Grain 'em and rub 'em down and go easy on the water till they cool.”
Yakima headed toward the open door.
”Anything else?”
”Yeah.” Yakima glanced over his shoulder. ”Clean out their hooves and check their shoes.”
As he descended the ramp to the street, casting a cautious glance toward the jailhouse on his right, he heard the liveryman grumbling behind him, ”Sh.o.r.e are cheeky for a dirt-wors.h.i.+per!”
The wind was kicking up as the sun angled behind the distant sawtooth ridges. Yakima squinted his eyes against the blowing dust and straw as he headed west, stepping over fresh horse apples and goat dung.
As he approached Charlier's-a two-story adobe built in the old Spanish style, with a couple of small balconies with wrought-iron railings on the second floor-a tumbleweed flew toward him, and he ducked. The weed continued on past him and pasted itself against the front window of Thaddeus Wilford's undertaking parlor.
Gentle piano music filtered out of the tavern before him, sounding beneath the moaning wind like a spring rain on a tin roof. Half a dozen horses were tied to the hitchrack, and loud male voices spilled over the batwing doors.
Mounting the porch fronting Charlier's, Yakima paused to peer over the scarred batwings. The room was about half full, and tobacco smoke wafted up to the low, herringbone-patterned ceiling. Several Mexican freighters in dusty trail garb sat in the shadows to the left. Most of the other tables were occupied by American cowboys, Mexican vaqueros, mule skinners, drifters, and a few burly, sun-seared prospectors in hobnailed boots. A short, skinny Mexican with a receding hairline and a handlebar mustache was playing the piano.
Anjanette was running drinks from the bar while her pugnacious grandfather, Old Antoine, set them up and served the four men bellied up to the mahogany. Yakima made for a table in the room's far right corner, weaving around the other tables and avoiding outstretched legs and beer pooling on the stone tiles. He set his saddlebags and rifle on the table, kicked out a chair, and was about to sit down when someone poked his back.
He turned. Anjanette smiled up at him, a beer in one hand, a shot in the other. The red bandanna held her coal black hair back from her face. Her voice was raspy. ”Something to cut the trail dust?”
”Don't mind if I do. Just the beer. I don't drink the hard stuff in town.” He reached for his right hip pocket.
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