Remarque's Law Read online

  As Ben struggled to his feet, the men were quitting the stable through those doors that led to the rear corral, leading the horse that continued to lodge a protest. Once again he recognized the sound of his own animal and followed the horse stealers outside. The heavy clouds had shifted in the sky and the moon was high and full above the town. The light it provided was minimal but seemed brilliant in comparison to the dense blackness inside the stable.

  Ben paused in the doorway. He could see his assailants making their way along the side of the corral. ‘That’s my horse,’ he yelled into the night, knowing they wouldn’t stop, that the words were wasted, but he wasn’t going to allow anyone to steal his horse.

  A gunshot cracked in the night and a bullet thudded into the stout wood door by which Ben was standing. He drew his revolver, not willing to shoot in case he hit the chestnut, but he was determined that the men who had attacked him and stolen his horse would not escape.

  Across the corral, Jarvis Wilson cursed his companion. ‘Hurry,’ he ordered. ‘That gunshot will arouse the whole town, Gatt.’

  Ben ran from the doorway to the corral rails. One of the thick posts provided cover while he attempted to discern the activity of his enemies. When it was clear that they had moved beyond the corral, he set off in pursuit. Although it was necessary for them to cross thirty yards of open terrain to reach it, it soon became clear that their immediate goal was the solitary low oak tree on the edge of town. Movement under the tree caught his eye and he wondered if accomplices were waiting there to provide cover while they made their escape. He advanced more cautiously until he was certain that the saddles of the two horses waiting under the tree were empty.

  From the buildings of the settlement arose the sound of voices – citizens curious about the gunshot, Ben supposed, but too far distant to be any help in his effort to foil the act of horse stealing. If it was to be prevented then he had to act alone. The men had reached the tree and were trying to gain their saddles, but the one who had charge of the chestnut was not having an easy time. The big horse continued to pull on the long lead rein, reluctant to go with the unknown men.

  Ben shouted again, then took a risk. He didn’t want any harm to come to the chestnut but only bullets would stop the thieves’ flight. He waited, knowing that when they were mounted they would present higher targets; he would be able to shoot over the chestnut’s head. If he missed they would escape and he would have lost his horse.

  When they were in the saddle he took aim. One of the men saw him and fired but the bullet flew wide of the mark. He returned fire: one shot at the burly man who was holding the lead rein of the chestnut. He saw the man slump forward, then his right hand released the lead rein in order to clamp it against his left shoulder. Ben fired again, by which time townsmen were rushing towards him to investigate the hullabaloo. The would-be thieves rode away but the chestnut went nowhere, bowed its head to graze on the coarse grass and waited for Ben to guide it back to the stable.

  Jake the stableman had been the obstruction on the floor responsible for twice bringing down Ben Joyner. When he was able, he confirmed Ben’s suspicion by identifying the men as the two that had been chased out of town earlier that day.

  ‘Reckon they want your horse real bad,’ he said, while someone bathed away the blood he’d lost when they’d pistol-whipped him.

  The lawman who was conducting an inquiry into the disturbance regarded Ben with no little concern. ‘I’m pleased you’re leaving town tomorrow,’ he declared.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Elsa Tippett was impatient to set out but Ben Joyner refused to leave the settlement until the sun was two hours beyond noon. Although certain that his attackers wouldn’t renew their efforts to steal his horse, he was still wary of an encounter with them in the desolate country that stretched almost to the Pecos River. One of them, the bully called Gatt, had stopped one of his slugs so they wouldn’t be travelling fast. It was fixed in Ben’s mind to be extra vigilant on the trail: he would insist upon making camp if he saw dust or smoke ahead.

  When Elsa joined him outside the hotel she was wearing a short jacket over a blue shirt and leather trousers that were tucked into calf-high boots. She flashed a look at him from under the wide brim of her flat-crowned hat that bespoke her irritation better than any words she could muster. It was a look that promised bleak companionship for the next four or five days. Ben watched as she tied well-filled saddlebags behind her saddle. He hoped the contents weren’t all women’s doodads, that she’d had the gumption to pack some provisions for their journey, too. She also had a rifle, which she slid into the boot that would be clamped by her right leg when she mounted the mare.

  ‘Can you work one of those?’ he asked.

  ‘It belonged to Mr Raine. He said it was foolish to travel in these parts without the means of protection. So I brought it along.’

  ‘But can you use it?’

  ‘I know you point it then pull the trigger,’ she answered.

  Ben grunted, wishing, even at this late hour, for a reprieve from the task in hand, but none came. Resolved to getting Elsa Tippett to Pecos as quickly as possible, he climbed into the saddle. ‘Let’s ride,’ he said, and turned his horse to the west.

  The sheriff, leaning against a post outside his office, tipped his hat as they passed and Sam Puddler, standing outside the Dragoon, sent them on their way with a promise to Ben that the beer would still be cold when he returned. Ben barely acknowledged the whiskey seller’s remark; he’d already decided he’d give this place a wide berth after delivering Mrs Tippett to Pecos. Even though he was in the process of breaking his own mantra never to go back to a place he’d known, there was no reason to abandon it forever. Besides, his short stay in this settlement hadn’t been good for him; there was nothing about it that justified a second visit.

  The remainder of the daylight hours passed pretty much in the air of silent testiness that Ben had anticipated. He wasn’t troubled by the lack of communication: he looked upon the journey as a job not dissimilar to herding cows from one range to another. Men got on with their tasks during the day and jawed and swapped stories when they gathered around the night fires. He set the pace, sometimes covering a half-dozen miles at a steady, loping run before slowing to a dust-dragging canter or walk. Elsa Tippett remained a length behind the whole way, matching his changes of pace without question or complaint. They saw no other travellers and covered more than thirty miles before Ben decided it had become too dark to travel. There was nothing special about the place he chose for their camp because the semi-arid territory was unchanging for more than a hundred miles.

  ‘I’ll tend to the horses while you gather up some sticks and brushwood,’ he told the woman.

  By the time she’d gathered an armful of fuel Ben had hauled the saddles from their mounts, tethered them and allowed them to lap water from his hat.

  When he set about building a fire he told Elsa Tippett that they wouldn’t be cooking food. ‘We’ll use some of the water from our canteens to brew coffee,’ he told her ‘but we’ll leave the bacon and beans until the morning. The smell of frying bacon will attract coyotes. We don’t want to be troubled by them while we’re trying to sleep.’

  Elsa Tippett kept her own counsel but the look she threw at Ben seemed to convey a suspicion that he was being unnecessarily Spartan. He retrieved some hardtack biscuits from his saddlebags and gave a couple to his companion. She eyed them as though they were the meagre rations for a despised prisoner. Her distaste eased a grin out of Ben.

  ‘They’re fresh,’ he said, and bit into one as though proving the point. ‘During the war,’ he added, ‘the ones they issued were so old that we had to drop them into hot coffee before we could eat them.’ When Elsa’s eyes flickered with a glimmer of interest, he supplied the reason for the soaking. ‘Full of insects. Weevils, mainly. The boiling coffee killed them and they’d come floating to the top. We had to skim them off before drinking.’ He laughed, remembering the deprivations endured
even by a victorious army.

  ‘Blue or grey?’ Elsa Tippett asked, the question dismissing as insignificant the wartime fodder of a soldier, the colour of his uniform being a more important consideration.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘My son fought for the Union. My brother, too. I just wondered if their conditions were equally bad.’

  Ben wasn’t sure that that was the real purpose of her question, but the war was three long years past and it was time for those divisions to be healed. ‘Made no difference, Mrs Tippett. Everyone who fought was issued with tainted provisions, even the officers.’ He paused before speaking again and supplied the answer she really wanted. ‘Blue, Mrs Tippett. I wore a blue uniform.’

  She nodded, as though that answer had some deeper significance, then bit into the biscuit.

  ‘When did you last see your son?’

  ‘ ’63, when he went off with the 33rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry.’

  ‘He didn’t return home at the end of the war?’

  ‘No. Him and Carlton had plans to settle out here. The free west, they called it.’

  Ben had known many men in the ranks with similar dreams, but for everyone who followed them through he figured there were dozens who hadn’t. ‘When did you last hear from your son?’

  ‘I got Henry’s last letter in ’67.’

  ‘Two years ago!’

  ‘The letter came from Fort Worth, full of hope that they’d found the right place to build a home where I’d be able to join them.’

  ‘Two years,’ Ben repeated, the thought clanging in his head that such a lapse of time most probably meant that her son and brother were dead.

  ‘Mr Raine had information that they’d moved to the region around Pecos,’ the woman was saying, her voice projecting certitude in her mission. ‘I expect they’ve established a home somewhere along the river.’

  ‘And if they haven’t, what do you do then?’

  ‘Why are you so sceptical, Mr Joyner? Why shouldn’t I find my son in Pecos?’

  ‘You haven’t heard from him for two years. Surely you’ve considered the possibility that he never reached Pecos?’

  A flash of determination – or perhaps it was accusation – filled her eyes when she next addressed Ben Joyner. ‘Are you telling me he’s dead? That someone killed him? Why would you think such a thing?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to imply that someone killed him, but he could be dead. Accidents happen, illnesses, too, and men get lost and perish without water in this scrubland.’

  ‘I don’t believe that,’ she declared, ‘and I mean to keep going until we reach Pecos.’

  ‘I’ve promised to get you there, Mrs Tippett, and I will, but I won’t be hanging around that town for more than a day, and I think you need to have some plan for a return east in case your family can’t be found.’

  There had been a moment in their conversation when a thaw in their relationship had seemed possible, not to the point of friendship but at least warm enough to make their time together in the ensuing days bearable. But Elsa Tippett told Ben that she had no intention of returning to Ohio, unfurled her bedroll at the other side of the fire and lay down to sleep with her back to him.

  While he was frying bacon the following morning, Elsa Tippett approached Ben.

  ‘How long did you work at the Long-R?’ she asked.

  ‘Close on two years.’

  ‘And you never met Mr Raine?’

  ‘Can’t say that I did, but I heard some talk of a Bud Raine who’d quit the place before I got there. Could be the same person.’

  ‘Last night,’ she said, ‘that talk about my son being dead. . . . Was that meant to persuade me to turn back?’

  Ben shook his head. ‘Returning to the Pecos territory wasn’t in my plans, Mrs Tippett. I don’t want to do it, but I said I would and I’ll see the journey through.’

  Those words seemed to satisfy the woman. She stretched out a hand that was holding a small leather pouch. ‘There’s fifty dollars in there,’ she told him.

  ‘I don’t want your money, Mrs Tippett. Never did. I’m doing this to release me from any obligation you think I owe you. No other reason, but you’re on your own when I get you there.’

  He scooped the bacon onto two plates, which already contained hardtack biscuits and a shared tin of beans, and they ate in silence.

  When they rode away, Elsa Tippett kept her horse alongside Ben’s. Little was said but, in Ben’s opinion, the atmosphere between them was less brittle, as though he’d been tested and adjudged honourable without knowing of what was considered unworthy. In keeping with the previous day, Ben set the pace, but he was considerate of Elsa’s unfamiliarity with long horse rides and broke the journey whenever she needed to rest. They camped that night in a gulch, through which water ran. Their replenished canteens would last until they reached Pecos.

  The remains of a recent fire suggested to Ben that the would-be horse thieves, too, had used this place, and a bloody rag lying close by seemed to confirm his suspicions. From the heat that was still in the embers he estimated that the pair had stopped here around midday, putting them four or five hours ahead. Perhaps more if they were travelling fast to get Gatt to a doctor. But they came across no other signs of those men or any other until the last morning when they were within a few miles of the Pecos River.

  By this time they had left behind the rough land of grit and cacti and were crossing the greener pastures of the Pecos valley, which fed the cattle herds of the Long-R and other ranches. Even so, the wagon that was on track to cross their route half a mile ahead was travelling so fast that it was kicking dust high into the sky. As they drew closer to each other, Ben could hear the crack of a whip being snapped over the heads of the straining team and could make out the stocky figure of a man in a blue shirt bent to his task. The wagon was almost past Ben before he recognized the driver.

  Dick Garde was one of the six or seven men who had marked out a homestead along the river north of Pecos. His eyes were fixed on Ben as he yelled his urgency at the horses. Ben raised a hand in greeting but its intended friendliness was nullified by the expression on Dick’s face. The scowl was indicative of the existence of a deep-rooted argument, but there had never been a cross word between them. Bewildered, Ben watched as the flat wagon rumbled past. It was then that he saw the figure lying in the back, pitching and rolling with every jerk and twist resulting from the vehicle’s rapid progress. The man was barely conscious, his clothes were torn and grubby and his face was battered and bloody from brow to chin. Ben might not have recognized him if it hadn’t been for the red hair atop his head. It was Dick Garde’s neighbour, Drew Skivver.

  Concerned for his friend and curious to know how Drew had sustained the injuries, Ben shouted for Dick to halt the wagon. At first, he thought he hadn’t been heard above the pounding hoof-beats and the ringing of the iron-rimmed wheels on the hard ground, but when he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and set off in pursuit it became clear that no thought of halting the team existed in Dick Garde’s mind. Instead, when he looked back and realized that Ben was intent upon pursuit, he cracked the whip repeatedly, demanding greater effort from the horses.

  Ben couldn’t account for the homesteader’s determination to put distance between them; he had done nothing to arouse the man’s enmity. However, he couldn’t deny that there had been something accusatory in the scowl that had been aimed at him when passing, a suggestion that he bore some responsibility for Drew Skivver’s injuries. He reined to a halt: it seemed clear to him that by continuing his pursuit he would only increase Dick’s anger. Scratching his head in puzzlement, he looked back over his shoulder to where Mrs Tippett watched and waited for him to re-join her. Whatever burr was under Dick Garde’s saddle would have to remain there until he’d got her to town.

  It was necessary to cross the River Pecos to gain the town that carried the same name. Although the river was neither wide nor deep at this point, a bridge had long ago been built to accomm
odate the passage of wagons and livestock. After crossing it, Ben Joyner and Elsa Tippett made their way through the scattering of riverside adobe buildings that remained of the early Mexican settlement before reaching the timber frame buildings of American construction. Austin Street, the longest thoroughfare, had become the centre of the community, and the Alamo Hotel, which occupied a centre block, was their destination. It was reputed to be the best hotel between Fort Worth and Chihuahua, which meant a room there would cost Mrs Tippett a good deal more than she’d paid to stay in Sam Puddler’s rooming house. If it were more expensive than her finances permitted then she would have to seek out alternative accommodation after he’d quit the town. He’d brought her to Pecos, but he was obliged to do nothing more for her.

  On entering Austin Street, they could see men spilling out of Shay Dubbin’s saloon and gathering in an ever-quietening semi-circle around its corner entrance until a heavy, awkward silence hung over them. An argument had been brought outside and every non-participant was anxious to see the outcome. Conversations were non-existent; men wanted only the evidence of their own eyes and if they had an opinion on the rights or wrongs of the argument they were keeping it to themselves. Their mood had attracted the attention of passers-by and tradesmen in the vicinity, and all commerce had come to a standstill. Ben Joyner and Elsa Tippett, too, reined their animals to a halt, their way ahead hampered by the street throng.

  On the raised boardwalk outside Dubbin’s Saloon, the antagonists faced each other. At first they numbered four and Ben was able to put names to three of them. Two of them, Arnie Arentoft and Frank Faulds, had staked claims north of town alongside Drew Skivver and Dick Garde. Arnie’s round face, so often beaming with good humour, was red with an anger that also coloured his raised voice. His English was good but he had never lost the accent of his home country. People called him the Dutchman, which he didn’t object to.