Читать книгу TY HOLT-TEXAS RANGER - Aubrey Smith - Страница 4

Tant began to tell the story that had brought him fifteen miles to get his nose broken.

“Early this morning,” Tant said in a nasally whine, his nose puffy from Ty’s punch, “Thornberry was hiking it to the diner for breakfast. Everyone knows he goes there every morning for breakfast except Sunday, everyone except you, Holt. I guess everyone also knows that once or twice a week on his way to the diner, Thornberry stops at Crazy Shirley’s for a poke.”

“Banker Thornberry?”

“Who’s Crazy Shirley?” Dade interrupted.

“Town’s only whore,” Ty said. Remembering Mary Jane, he turned and doffed his hat. “Sorry, ma’am.”

Tant also glanced toward Mary Jane standing in the doorway. “Sorry, ma’am,” he echoed, then continued, “I guess he had done his business and was on his way to the diner when wham! Someone shot him right between the eyes. Took that smile right off his face and sent him to be a moneychanger for the devil.”

“Who plugged him?” Ty asked.

“Don’t know. Mr. Cornelius, the bank’s teller, gave me five dollars to ride up here and fetch you. That’s all I know. He said to tell you Thornberry’s dead and to come quick.”

“Me and Matthew could use a little help with the grave digging before Pastor Boultinghouse arrives,” Dade hurriedly interjected.

“We’ll help, and then set out at first light,” Ty decided.

“Five dollars don’t buy no grave digging,” Tant said as he fell into one of the porch chairs.

“I reckon you’ll help us with the digging ‘less you want another whack to the side of your head.”

“Dang it, Holt. You ain’t got no sense of humor at all.” Tant grunted as he got up. “Where’s the dad-blamed shovel? What’s one grave anyhow?”

“Four graves, Mr. Tant,” Dade snorted.

By dark, the graves had been dug and words said. Shine was buried near the house. The braves were buried in a shallow grave near the river. Mrs. Barrow and Mary Jane were now in the kitchen preparing supper for the lawmen and Tant. The pastor had come and gone. Sue Carol, the youngest Barrow child, was asleep on a straw pallet near the door. The sunset was a deep red as the men went about caring for the stock.

Ty wanted to be alone. He took his canteen and walked to the spring. He needed time to think about all that had happened. He needed time to decide if the murders of the three Comanches, Shine Barrow, and Banker Thornberry were somehow connected. He also needed to determine if the man he’d seen in black could be the assassin. Had he let the murderer ride right by him to kill Banker Thornberry?

When the canteen was full, he noticed a hole dug into the side of the bluff between the still and the spring. It was covered by a gunnysack and a little dry brush. Inside the dugout, along the back wall, were four gallon jugs of moonshine, wrapped in wet moss. Ty unwrapped one of the jugs and took a long swallow. The whiskey took his breath. Carefully, he shoved the plug back into the jug and laid it back in place. When he turned around, Mary Jane was standing right behind him. She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

“I hope I didn’t scare you.” Mary Jane took a quick breath and then told Ty, “I’ve been wanting to talk to you alone.”

“What about?”

“Come walk with me, Mr. Holt. I’ve got something to show you.” Quickly, she turned away and began walking upstream, her black skirt, dragging the ground like turkey wings in a strut, sending little puffs of dust skyward. “Come on Mr. Holt. I won’t hurt you,” she said when he hesitated.

Ty followed behind as they threaded their way through the thick river grass and sumac trees. Mary Jane paused about a hundred yards beyond the pecan motte where Dade had shown Ty the forty-four-forty casing.

“I don’t know Mr. Peterson, but I know you. I’ve seen you here before. You’ve bought whiskey from Pa,” she said matter-of-factly. “I need to tell the law something. But it has to be someone I can trust. Can I trust you, Mr. Holt?”

“I think so, Mary Jane. What is it?”

She seemed a little unsure whether or not to go on. Finally, she spoke. “A couple of days ago this drummer stopped by the cabin. He was peddling pots and pans. You know what kind of rig I’m talking about?”

“I know.” Ty wondered, Could the drummer have been the man in black, the assassin?

“He was … handsome … and … well … he seemed real nice. He traded Pa some pans for some of Pa’s stillings and a few skins Pa had left over from last winter.”

“That’s all he had, pots and pans?” Ty asked, thinking he knew where this story was going. He’d seen too many traveling salesmen over the years and had heard jokes about them.

“Well, no,” Mary Jane answered. She hesitated. “He had a couple of bolts of cloth, some ribbons, and a few dresses.”

“You buy anything?” Ty asked. Even in the twilight he could see Mary Jane blush.

“After he was through with Pa, he told Jeb, Sue Carol, and me that he had something on the wagon for us. Said he didn’t want us to feel left out. Told us to come out to the wagon and he’d get it.”

“You go to the wagon with him?” The drummer with Mary Jane was not something Ty wanted to think about.

“Yes sir.”

“What was it he had for you all?” Ty asked clenching his jaws.

“He had some hard candy. He gave Jeb and Sue Carol a piece and told them to run along.”

“He didn’t give you any candy?”

“No, sir. When Jeb and Sue Carol were gone, he showed me this blue silk dress. Mr. Holt … Ty … it was the prettiest dress I’d ever seen. Real expensive, with red and blue ribbons and a real silver Indian hair comb that went with the dress.”

Sonofabuck! “What did he want to trade for the dress and genuine Indian comb?”

“He said he was camping up the road in a place they call the Lost Maples. Do you know where that is?”

“I know, two, three miles upriver where there’s a stand of maple trees?”

“That’s the place. He told me that he’d trade me that dress, two ribbons, and the Indian comb for another jug of Pa’s shine.”

“What did you tell him?” Ty hoped she’d told him to go shinny up a stump.

“I told him heck yes. I told him to hang on a second and I’d go get it for him.”

“What did he say to that?”

“He told me to wait. Said it would embarrass Pa to have his daughter doing the trading, said it would make Pa look bad in front of his family.”

“He wanted you to get the jug and bring it to his camp later?”

“How did you know that’s what he said?” Mary Jane asked. She moved closer.

“A lucky guess. Did you?”

“I told him I couldn’t.”

Hallelujah! “What did he have to say to that?”

“He said he’d throw in a pair of lace-up, black leather shoes if I would. He told me he could sell the whiskey in San Angelo and double his money. I really wanted that dress and comb,” Mary Jane said. “And those shoes by themselves were worth more than the moonshine.”

“And?”

“He said it was okay, said he understood how I couldn’t come so far alone at night.”

“Did he leave?” Ty guessed the drummer wouldn’t go that easy, not with any hope left of tricking a girl this pretty and innocent into his clutches.

“Not right then,” Mary Jane said. “He told me to get a jug of shine and meet him down by the river about the time the moon came up.”

“Did you agree to meet him?”

“Of course,” Mary Jane answered. “That was over fifty dollars worth of clothes and shoes. I told you I wanted them, and I sure enough thought he wanted the whiskey. I thought he was crazy to make such a trade, but I figured that was his business. He seemed nice.”

“So you two made a trade?” Ty asked, hoping the answer would be no.

“We did,” Mary Jane answered.

Ty felt his stomach churn. “Then what?”

“Well, he made me promise not to tell Pa and gave me a ribbon to seal our bargain.”

“He gave you one of the blue and red ribbons to meet him later?”

“No, he gave me a smaller ribbon. He said he’d bring the rest of the stuff to the river.”

If that sonofabuck were here, I’d knock his block off, Ty thought. He guessed that same dress, ribbons, shoes, and comb had enticed more than one girl into the scoundrel’s bed. Maybe Shine had caught them and whipped the snot out of the drummer, and then the drummer came back and shot Shine.

“What happened then?”

“I promised not to tell Pa,” Mary Jane said.

“Did you meet him later?” Ty asked, experiencing an unexpected chaos of feelings for Mary Jane.

“Yes, Mr. Holt, I did.”

“And?”

“He was waiting for me when I got there. The moon was barely up, but I could see right off that he hadn’t brought any box of clothes. The scalawag told me he had the dress and things in a box over in the bushes.”

Ty’s sense of justice and fair play was afire with indignation. “What happened then?” Ty was now completely absorbed by what Mary Jane was telling him. As she spoke, a mingling of new passion and fury tugged his consciousness.

“I gave him the whiskey and told him to get the box.”

“Did he?” Ty’s hands had curled into fists.

“No, I told you he didn’t have the box. It was just a sham he used to lure me away from the house. I’ll bet he’s told a hundred other girls the same story. What do you think, Ty?”

“I think you’re probably right, Mary Jane.” And I think you’re the loveliest creature I have ever seen, he thought to himself.

“Well, he was in for a surprise with me. You know I’ve been to college in Missouri, don’t you, Ty?” She wasn’t bragging.

“I heard.”

“I’m no dance hall floozy. I took a rock-in-a-sock with me just in case.”

“A rock-in-a-sock?”

“It’s something my friend Jesse taught me in Clay County, before we moved to Texas. I took one of Pa’s old socks and put a round river rock in it, and when that drummer tried to kiss me, I whacked him a good one alongside his head. I had to hit him again when he tried to grab my foot.”

“You kill him?” Ty asked, and wondered what he would do if she had. He didn’t feel like arresting her for killing a scuzzler, and he sure didn’t want Dade to take her into Bandera to hang. She had begun to weave a web that Ty had fallen into, head over heels. He burned with feelings that he had not known before tonight.

“No, he moaned a mite, crawled around on his hands and knees, then took off running lickety-split upriver.”

Ty was relieved the drummer wasn’t dead. “That’s what you wanted to tell me?” he asked. He was thankful that Mary Jane’s virtue was apparently still intact.

“Oh no,” Mary Jane said. “It’s about the two skeletons I found.”

“Two skeletons? Where?”

Mary Jane turned away from the river and pointed toward a vertical limestone bluff. “There’s a cave behind those cedars,” she said.

The cedars were growing along the base of the bluff about seventy-five yards from the riverbank. “What have these skeletons got to do with you and that drummer?” Ty asked, half wondering if Mary Jane had killed two other drummers and hid their bodies in the cave. Maybe she’d rocked them in the head too.

“After I whacked that no-account fellow on the noggin, I was so mad I couldn’t think straight. I still had Pa’s jug in my hand and … now, you understand, I don’t even like the stuff, but I decided to sit a spell and have a swallow to calm my nerves.”

“I wish I had a swallow right now,” Ty said.

“See, I knew I could talk to you, Ty. I knew you were a good man the first time I laid eyes on you. I was feeling so bad—no dress, no comb, nothing. I just sat over there on that flat rock to open the bottle. I guess I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.”

Ty could barely make out the rock next to the cedars. “What happened then?” He could only imagine. Mary Jane was something else.

“Come with me,” she said, and took his hand to lead him to the rock.