BOUNTY HUNTER EPILOGUE
a man forms
his own retribution from the clay of the very thing
he sowed evil
with. We need do nothing but sit back
and allow the seeds to take root.”
-
J.J. Marx
Red Rock, Texas
1881
“What do you think you are doing?” Hannibal Heyes hissed in his cousin ear as he pulled him out the French doors onto the covered veranda with a yank that was part frustration and part desperation. The rain was coming down harder now, but he was grateful for the sound it made covering their voices.
“Playing poker,” Kid Curry’s soft drawl responded, his blue eyes unreadable in the darkness and it had nothing to do with the absence of light.
“No you’re not, your gambling and it isn’t just with your money! Any minute now he is gonna recognize us!”
“No he won’t,” Kid said leaning against the wall and watching the room they had left through the crack in the door with an experienced eye. “Mac vouched for us, hell even the Sheriff and Armanderez will.”
“Kid you really wanna risk 20 years on that kind of back up? Besides Harris is crazy, didn’t Joe prove that to you? Not to mention you wouldn’t be just taking him on, how many men do you think he has with him?”
“Seven,” Kid said with complete certainty.
“Yea, well you only have six bullets. We never should have agreed to sit in that. What were we thinking, three ranchers like that, all that money.”
“Heyes, you heard Mac, they needed us to round out the table.”
“They needed us to keep them all from killing each other.” Heyes said shivering at the memory of sitting at the table with Armanderez, Big Mac and Max Harris. The men had in formed a shaky alliance with several other ranchers to curb rustling on both sides of the border from Arizona to Texas. Unfortunately the weather and flash floods had delayed the rest of the group leaving the three men to attempt to get through an evening alone civilly.
“Heyes I am just playing poker.”
“You stopped playing poker when he sat down and you recognized him,” Heyes said tightly. “Kid it’s been 4 months, Joe is dead. We couldn’t do anything then and we can’t do anything now. Revenge is for suckers you know that.”
“Heyes I just want to see this out. Why don’t you go to bed, I’ll be along in a bit.”
Heyes rolled his eyes at the audacity of the suggestion. “Oh sure I’ll just leave you here to get yourself killed!”
“Heyes its not gonna come to that.”
“You keep baiting him like you have it will!” Heyes groaned knowing it was useless. Kid had been set on this course since the man sat down at the table and they both got a good look at him. Nothing, but nothing was going to deter him until he had found a way to remind the man of that September day.
It was not even as though Joe Simms had been a friend, in fact the exact opposite doing everything in his power to turn them in for their bounty. But seeing him shot in the back so callously and for no reason than his color had burned a place in their memory. True they had seen more violent and bloody confrontations, but the cold matter of fact ness of the murder had stunned them in a way a more passionate encounter might have not.
They had debated all the way to town on whether to report the murder finally deciding against it in person and wiring the Sheriff instead from a safe distance. The reply had been a threat against the crime of slander and a tip off to the local sheriff accusing them of being trouble makers forcing them to leave town in a hurry.
Neither had spoken of it again and the matter had been regulated to their collection of life’s other injustices.
But now seeing him as a guest of McCreedy had dredged the memory back up and along with it Kid’s indignation.
The offer by McCreedy to handle ‘security’ for the gathering had seemed easy money until now.
“You gentlemen enjoy the rain as well?” came a voice and they turned to see Armanderez had come up behind them lighting a cigar. “It is always welcome where I come from even if it does confine.”
Both outlaws swallowed smiles. They had been surprised when Armanderez had accepted the offer to join the conference, his feud with McCreedy well known. But after seeing the number of losses and the amount of bloodshed ranchers on both sides of the border had been enduring Heyes could see how he had agreed for a chance to end it.
“So tell me gentlemen, Max Harris, what has he done to you to cause such rankle? As much as it pains me to say it I value your opinion. If he is an enemy to you I would know why before I pledge to stand beside him.”
Heyes shot Kid a look saying I told you something like this would happen, but Kid merely straightened stubbornly and looked Armanderez in the eye.
“He killed a man,” Kid said simply.
“I see,” Armanderez said showing no reaction. “You have proof of this?”
“Saw it happen,” Kid said.
“A great many of us have killed men senor, I myself cannot stand before you without traces of blood.”
“Yea, but I’m willing to bet it wasn’t in the back,” Kid said simply.
Armanderez nodded, “You make a valid point. This man that was killed, he was a friend of yours…no I think no or you would not have let it ended so, yet still it bothers you after time has passed, interesting. So tell me the law in your country did nothing?”
“Max is an important man, Joe…wasn’t,” Heyes said and even he was surprised by the bitterness in his voice.
“So what are you planning to do about this?” Armanderez said interested, but in no way pushing them.
Heyes looked at the older man surprised. He had expected him to either wash his hands or become angry at such a complication. This calm willingness to allow them to dictate the next move was a great compliment.
“Not sure,” Kid said sounding young and annoyed with himself for not having the right answer.
“Well may I make the observation Senor Jones that if you keep…what is the word? Ah prodding! Prodding him he is very likely going to draw on you or have one of his men or all of them do it for him. Is that what you wish?”
Kid considered this. The rancher would have no chance against him. Even the two hired guns in his mix of cowhands Kid instinctively sensed didn’t offer a threat to him. No if he wanted to he could take any and probably all of them since there was no question if something started Heyes would back him up.
“No, I guess not,” Kid said.
“I see I have judged you correctly. Oh I know of your prowess with a gun Senor, your skill that day in the saloon made its way back to me, my man who was there told me there is not a man in Mexico who could equal it. And yet knowing this you still will not use it to settle things. This tells me two things, you are not a killer and you have honor.”
Kid looked uncomfortable at the compliment, “Look don’t make me all noble I still wanna beat the hell out of him for what he did.”
Armanderez smiled, “Si, I can appreciate that. I myself have thought the very same thing about Senor McCreedy at least twice tonight!”
“Only twice?” Heyes said and all three men smiled the tension now replaced with understanding and something even more surprising, respect.
“A bit of advice Senor from a man who has been in your shoes? Heaven has a way of balancing as they say the books. If a man spends his life swimming in poison he will eventually swallow enough to kill him.”
Heyes held his breath as Kid considered the man’s words. Jed didn’t listen to a lot of men, in fact modesty aside Heyes was about the only man he did take stock by.
“Yea maybe your right, my grandmother used to tell me the same,” Kid said annoyed, but resigned. “I think maybe I’ll just get me a bottle and head up to my room. Thank you Senor.”
Heyes exhaled as he watched Kid walk away.
“Thank you,” he said quietly and Armanderez turned to meet his eyes.
“Injustice bothers him, you as well, do no deny it I have seen it in you eyes. I like that in a man. Tell me one thing Senor, this man Max Harris killed he was not white was he?”
“That make a difference?” Heyes said his face unreadable.
“No Senor it does not,” he replied. “Now I think I need a drink as well, what say we find two more bottles and your friend?”
And the two walked back into the house both having raised their opinion of the other just a little higher.
**************************
Heyes stumbled down the stairs and found coffee waiting squinting at the bright sunshine streaming into the large well kept kitchen. He had drank too much last night and he hurt like hell. The Mexican cook and her help took one look at him and cleared away to the other end of the kitchen and were wise enough to not even suggest breakfast.
Looking up he saw his partner gingerly enter the room and take the coffee he had just poured like a life line.
“How much tequila did we drink last night?”
“I don’t know how much was in the bottle after the whiskey ran out?” Heyes said sitting down beside him at the wooden table that dominated the center of the room.
Kid managed to find a smile at the memory, “Who would of thought Armanderez had stories like that?”
“Makes us look like choir boys,” Heyes grinned back and then winced. “I’ll tell you this I’m never matching him drink for drink again.”
The sound of horses at the back door made them both look up.
“Rest of the group must have finally made it through,” Heyes said.
“Well they could do it a bit more quietly,” Kid grumbled.
“Boys shouldn’t try and drink like men,” came a voice from the inner doorway and Max Harris stepped into the room looking awake, starched and pressed and annoying superior about it..
Heyes quickly looked down to see if Kid was wearing his gun and sighed relieved to see he was not. He would have hated to have to borrow it and use it. The noise of it going off would have hurt his head something fierce.
“You Texas boys think you can drink like the big men, but…”
‘Were not from Texas,” Kid said quietly. “Kansas.”
‘Farmers?” the man spat like he had profaned.
Kid put a hand on Heyes shoulder as he moved to stand.
“Yes sir, farmers.”
The door opened in a rush sparing the man a chance to reply and in all probably saving him and the kitchen as several men tumbled in looking trail weary and apprehensive.
“Bill! ‘Bout time you got here!” Max said as McCreedy and Armanderez entered the room.
“Max fraid I got some bad news, its Johnny, your boy,” the oldest man said pulling off his hat.
“What about Johnny?” the old man said and for the first time he looked vulnerable.
“Chiracowa, he’s dead Max.”
‘Dead?”
“We recovered what was left of the body…” the man’s voice trailed off. “I’m real sorry.”
“But why?”
“He was white Max, didn’t need no other reason the mood they been in lately.”
The old man crumpled and Mac caught his arm.
“Lets go into the den, get a drink,” Mac ordered and helped the rancher from the room the others following soberly.
Kid looked up at Heyes stunned and his partner merely shrugged.
“It is a terrible world when a man can be killed merely because of the color of his skin eh amigos?” Armanderez said softly and then walking over picked up the coffee pot.
“More coffee gentlemen?”