A Quiet, Little Town Read online

  “But no violence, Manuel. Keep the iron holstered.”

  “Sí, señor.”

  “Young Will Graham will drive the surrey,” Stark said. “That set all right with you?”

  Manuel Garcia nodded. “He’ll do, señor.”

  “He’s good with a gun.”

  “Fast, señor. Very fast.”

  “The Apaches are out, but my daughter doesn’t care,” Stark said. “I don’t want to force her to stay home. At least not now.”

  “The Apaches are to the north of us,” Garcia said. “We are not in any danger.”

  “I heard the army chased them all the way to the Colorado,” Stark said.

  The vaquero nodded. “Yes, señor. I have heard that very thing.”

  Stark’s eyes moved from the vaquero to the window. Outside, Della waited by the surrey, a Morgan bay in the traces, lanky towhead Will Graham already at the reins.

  Stark said, “Della is ready to leave. Take good care of her, Manuel.”

  “Sí, señor. Where the señorita goes, Manuel will go.”

  * * *

  Gideon Stark watched the surrey leave until it was lost in the distance, the day already bright with the morning sun. He stood outside his sprawling ranch house for a long time, deep in thought, his racing mind centered on his daughter and the man she claimed to love . . . unfortunately not the rich hidalgo Don Miguel de Serra, but a landless, penniless pill-roller. If the Englishman Ernest Walzer was a man of his word . . . and why wouldn’t he be? . . . the assassins must already be in Texas, and Ben Bradford was a walking dead man. The question was when would they gun him? Today? Tomorrow? Next week? Next month? He had to know.

  Stark was a man of medium height dressed in well-worn range clothes. Big shoulders. Big hands. Iron-gray hair cropped short, compensated for by a sweeping dragoon mustache and heavy eyebrows. An almost brutal face, lean, wide-lipped, anchored by a steamship prow of a nose with curved, flaring nostrils. His eyes were steel gray and reflected the gamut of his emotions . . . anger . . . annoyance . . . greed . . . envy . . . fear . . . cruelty . . . but nothing of joy . . . tenderness . . . love . . . happiness . . . sentiments he’d never felt. Such emotions stand in the way of empire building. Gideon Stark was a tight, bitter, empty man, and ambition was the driving force in his life. Some apologist historians say Stark’s love for his daughter was his saving grace. But wiser heads know that he didn’t love Della. He was incapable of such love. His plan had always been to use her as a pawn in the marriage game to make himself richer and more powerful. Don Miguel owned several vast ranchos in south Texas and across the Rio Grande into Mexico, and when joined with Stark’s own immense acres, such an alliance would create a nation within a nation and propel him to the highest office in the land . . . the presidency of the United States. In the face of such ambition, the fact that Don Miguel was a fifty-five-year-old lecher who was rumored to have taken the mercury cure for syphilis was neither here nor there. And a mere small-town doctor who had beguiled a silly, headstrong girl would not stand in Stark’s way, either.

  He walked back into the house that was aggressively masculine: leather, dark wood, gun racks, and portraits of bearded Confederate generals and bleak oil landscapes on the walls. The only feminine touch was a clay pot of now-wilted wildflowers that Della had placed in one of the front windows.

  Stark stepped into his study that smelled of cigars, bourbon, and horse sweat and sat at his desk. He pulled out a piece of notepaper, dipped a pen in the inkwell, and wrote:

  Come. Now.

  He folded the paper in half and stuffed it into a long envelope and addressed it to

  The Right Honorable Harold Fairfax

  There were several punchers grouped around the corral, and Stark gave it to one of the smarter ones to deliver to the neighboring ranch with the warning, “He’s the son of a belted earl, so watch your tongue.”

  The cowboy read the name on the envelope and said, “I know who he is, boss.”

  “Good, then see that he gets it,” Stark said. “I want him here before sundown.”

  The puncher nodded and left for the barn.

  “Saddle a fast horse,” Stark called after him.

  The man waved, and a few minutes later galloped away on a long-legged American stud.

  The Fairfax ranch house stood right on the fence between the two spreads, a thing Stark would have taken as an affront had he not allied himself with Harold Fairfax. The earl’s son had a small ranch that never ran more than a few hundred head, most of them longhorns, but he was a ruthless, vicious miscreant with good connections, and for those reasons he stood high in Stark’s esteem.

  Fairfax would know where the high-priced assassins were at . . . and when Dr. Ben Bradford would die.

  * * *

  Donny Bryson lay on a shallow brush-covered rise overlooking the main wagon road that led from one of the big spreads to his east. He’d been saddling his horse when he’d spotted the rising dust. Wary of a hemp-noose posse, he’d grabbed his telescope and scrambled up the hill to take a look-see. The spyglass to his eye, he felt relief that it was a surrey with an outrider kicking up the dust and then interest when he saw the passenger . . . a blonde woman wearing a blue dress. At that distance, he couldn’t tell if she was pretty or not. Cursing the small telescope’s low power, in the fleeting time that the surrey was in view he managed to ascertain that the woman was slim, and that pleased him. But the vaquero with the gun was troubling, as was the driver, who was certain to be armed. If he rode toward them, those boys would shoot first and ask questions later, especially a pistol vaquero, always a finger looking for a trigger. The surrey and the woman in it were not easy targets, and Donny thought it through and then let it go. Probably a rancher’s wife or daughter heading into Fredericksburg to buy women’s fixin’s, she would come back this way, and next time he figured he’d be better prepared, or at least within shooting distance of the wagon road.

  Reluctantly, Donny returned to his cold camp in a cluster of wild oak and juniper cut through by a shallow stream. He’d had it in mind to ride south to the river country where he had Apache kin, if they weren’t already hung or in jail. There he’d lie low for a spell, at least until the Austin lawmen stopped hunting him.

  But the blonde woman in the surrey had changed all that.

  Sluggish thoughts seeped through the foul sewer of Donny’s mind. The woman might return later that afternoon or evening, or she might stay overnight in town and head back to the ranch the next day. He determined to climb the rise again with his glass and canteen and keep unholy vigil.

  He suddenly felt the need for the woman, and by God he’d have her.

  * * *

  “Set your mind at rest, Gideon,” Harold Fairfax said. “My father has complete faith in Ernest Walzer. The man has never been known to fail. I assure you, the assassins are close and biding their time.”

  “I sent a man to England with half of Walzer’s payment,” Stark said. “He won’t get the other half until the job is done and Ben Bradford is dead.”

  “Wasn’t that a risk, trusting the man?” Fairfax said.

  “I trust no one,” Stark said. “Walzer was told to get rid of the courier after the money was paid.”

  “Then the man is already dead,” Fairfax said. “My father tells me that Ernest Walzer is quite the expert with poisons.” He smiled. “But my dear, Gideon, surely you trust me?”

  “Of course, I trust you, Harold,” Stark said. “You and your father are in this thing too deep to turn traitor.”

  “I’m your friend, Gideon,” Fairfax said.

  Stark’s smile was an unpleasant grimace. “Harold, you’re a snake, and you’re nobody’s friend except your own. If I wanted to, I could hang you.”

  Fairfax’s face didn’t change, but his pale blue eyes hardened as he rose from his chair. “Why would you do that?”

  “I don’t know. But I could find something that cocks my pistol. What happened to the nesters over to Rusty Stone C
reek?”

  “They’re gone. You know that.”

  “I know you hung the pa and his three young sons from a cottonwood. What happened to the womenfolk?”

  “They left . . . why are you asking me these questions?”

  Stark said, “To make something clear, Harold.”

  “And that is?”

  Stark rose to his feet. “We’re not friends. You work for me. Get that through your head.”

  “I own my own spread,” Fairfax said.

  “Yes, you do, and I could take it from you tomorrow and hang you from same cottonwood that the nesters swung from.”

  Harold Fairfax hadn’t expected that last, and he didn’t know how to handle it. His weak-chinned, inbred face with its popping eyes was ashen. He’d never tanned under the Texas sun. His skin got redder and then peeled and flakes of dead skin constantly clung to his nose and cheekbones. Right then he was scared.

  But Stark had made his point, and he was prepared to be magnanimous. He laid a hand on Fairfax’s plump shoulder and grinned. “I’m just messing with you, Harold. We’re partners you and me, compadres, and that’s how it will be forever.”

  Fairfax was relieved, and he smiled. “You’re always a joker, Gideon.”

  Stark nodded. “Yeah, I sure am, always a one for a good joke.”

  Fairfax became serious. “As I told you earlier, you’ve no need to worry about the assassins. I’m sure they’re in Fredericksburg, and they’ll get the job done. In fact, I’ll go there myself and see it through.”

  “No, you won’t,” Stark said. “You’re too close to me. Della can’t suspect anything that ties me to the sawbones’ death.”

  “Yes, I understand,” Fairfax said, nodding, looking earnest.

  Stark shook his head. His face changed from smile to deadly seriousness. “No, you don’t, Harold. It just dawned on me that you don’t understand a damned thing.”

  “Gideon, it’s pretty clear,” Fairfax said.

  “I’ll tell you what’s suddenly clear, at least to me, and I don’t know why I didn’t think about it sooner.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That after this is over and Ben Bradford is dead, you could hold it over me. Threaten me with it.”

  “Blackmail, you mean?”

  “Blackmail, I mean. And see, it was already in your mind.”

  “No, Gideon, no,” Fairfax said. “I’d never do such a thing.”

  Stark smiled. “Sorry, Harold. I can’t take that chance.”

  * * *

  A few days later, Harold Fairfax’s death was carried in the Gillespie Tattler newspaper as a suicide. The story made page one and told how respected rancher Gideon Stark confronted Fairfax and accused him of lynching an entire family of nesters who’d squatted on his land. When Mr. Stark told Fairfax he planned to go to the law about the atrocity, the Englishman, in a paroxysm of guilt and unable to face the consequences, pulled his pistol and blew his brains out. The Tattler was moved to add, “Thus perished a man who did not hesitate to slaughter the innocents, men, women, and children, and then revealed his cowardice by his self-destruction. The Tattler says good riddance. Gillespie County, and indeed the great state of Texas, does not need men of Fairfax’s stripe. We also raise three hearty cheers for rancher Stark, who risked his own life to confront the murderer. Well done, Sir Gideon, this country needs more knights in shining armor like you!”

  * * *

  In fact, the reality of the killing was considerably less heroic.

  Harold Fairfax habitually wore a Colt .32-20 revolver in a cross-draw holster and in a single, catlike move Gideon Stark yanked it from the leather, took a step back and shot the Englishman in the left temple. Stone-cold dead and still on his feet, Fairfax stared at his killer for a long moment and then his legs collapsed under him and he sprawled on the floor. Stark shoved the Colt into the dead man’s left hand and closed his fingers around the handle.

  Big John Cooper, Stark’s segundo, and half a dozen punchers pounded on the ranch house door then scrambled inside. Gideon was cool, calm, and collected. He’d braced Fairfax about the deaths of the poor nester family out by Rusty Stone Creek and rather than face the consequences for his vile deed, he shot himself. Not by nature a deep-thinking man, Cooper accepted the story at face value, as did the cowboys with him. Harold Fairfax was universally disliked, so nobody much cared that he’d punched his own ticket. No one noticed, or thought it worth mentioning, that he wore his cross-draw Colt on the left side. He was a right-handed man who’d shot himself with the wrong hand.

  Ah well, if anyone had dared speak up, Gideon Stark would’ve said, “Shut your trap. I don’t give a damn what hand the idiot shot himself with.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  It was a few minutes after noon when Della Stark arrived in Fredericksburg. The sun was high in the sky, and the day was hot and gritty yellow dust hung in the streets like a mist.

  After the surrey stopped outside the Alpenrose Inn, Della told Will Graham to take the carriage to the livery and see that the Morgan was fed a scoop of oats.

  “But Miss Della, the boss said I had to stay close to you,” Graham said. His pleasant young face showed concern.

  “I’m meeting a lady friend inside,” Della said. “Do you really want to sit in a hot hotel room and listen to a lot of women talk?”

  “No, Miss Della, I surely don’t,” Graham said. “But your Pa . . .”

  “My Pa worries too much,” Della said, “I won’t leave the hotel, so I’ll be quite safe.”

  Manuel Garcia sat his horse beside the surrey, a slender, dark-eyed young man with a pearl-handled Colt on his right hip. “But Señor Stark said you were going to a dress shop,” he said.

  “Yes, later. But first I want to visit with my friend,” Della said. She smiled. “Manuel, why don’t you and Will find yourselves a nice shady beer garden? Come back here in two hours, and you can escort me to the dress shop.”

  “Miss Della, first I must meet your friend, I think,” Garcia said.

  The girl frowned. “Manuel, now you’re starting to make me very cross.”

  The vaquero shrugged, a very Mexican gesture. “I follow the patron’s orders.”

  Della let out a highly effected sigh. “Very well then. Bring in my bag and I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

  “Manuel, I’ll head for the livery and tend to the horse,” Graham said.

  “I’ll see you there in a while,” Garcia said. Both men were aware of the other’s gun skill and had no problem splitting up and going their separate ways.

  Garcia took Della’s carpetbag from the surrey, looped his horse to the hitching rail, and followed her into the hotel. The lobby was dark and cool, and Della stood talking with the desk clerk. After a while the man left and walked upstairs.

  “Ah, good, you’ve got my bag,” Della said to Garcia. “The hotel is busy, and you and Will must share a room tonight.”

  “We both sleep in the same bunkhouse, so I’m used to his snoring,” the vaquero said.

  The girl smiled and then turned as Augusta Addington came down the stairs.

  “Miss Stark?” Augusta said.

  “Yes, and you must be Miss Addington.”

  “You can call me Augusta.”

  “Likewise. I’m Della.”

  The two women embraced like long-lost sisters, and then Della said, “Augusta, this is Manuel Garcia, one of my father’s vaqueros.”

  Garcia bowed and said, “I am honored.”

  Augusta smiled and said, “I’ve heard of vaqueros, but never met one before. I must say, Mr. Garcia, you look splendid.”

  The vaquero, dressed in his best go-to-town outfit, seemed pleased and flustered at the same time, and Della came to his rescue. “Two hours, Manuel,” she said. “Augusta and I will be quite safe in her room until then.”

  Garcia nodded. “Sí, Miss Della. I will return for you later, but until then I’ll keep watch at a distance.”

  * * *

  Tw
o women sat on each side of a small, square table covered by a white tablecloth, blue china teapot, cups, saucers, and a plate of sugar cookies between them. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the hotel room window and made dust motes dance, and outside a brass oompah band played the Radetzky March in a nearby beer garden.

  Augusta Addington, tall, elegant, and beautiful, rose to her feet, closed the window, and said, “I think we’ve heard quite enough of that.”

  Della Stark was her opposite. A petite girl with blonde ringlets, pretty, hazel-eyed, a small, heart-shaped mouth that smiled readily, she lifted the pot and said, “More tea, Augusta?”

  “Please,” Augusta said. She waited until Della poured tea and then added milk and a sugar cube and stirred, and said, “As you fear, your young doctor’s life is in the greatest danger, and I think his would-be assassins are already in Fredericksburg.”

  Della’s hand flew to her throat. “Oh my God,” she said, her eyes wide and frightened.

  “Do you really think your father could be behind all this?” Augusta said.

  “I don’t know what to think,” the girl said. “My father is a hard, unyielding man, but I . . . I just don’t believe he’d stoop to murder.”

  “He wants you to marry . . .”

  “Don Miguel de Serra.”

  “Yes,” Augusta said. “Tell me about him.”

  Della looked distressed. “He’s a pig, a rapist who preys on women. He brings whores and peasant girls into his hacienda just to torture and humiliate them in every way he can. Even my father admits that Don Miguel loves to abuse women.”

  “And prostitutes and peons are an easy target because no one cares what happens to them,” Augusta said.

  “He is said to have syphilis,” Della said. “It’s a loathsome, terrible disease that . . .”

  “I know what syphilis is,” Augusta said. “And Don Miguel, he is rich?”

  “The richest man in Mexico, a great landowner with many cattle,” Della said. “A puncher once told me that when Don Miguel moves a herd, dust blackens the sky and blots out the sun for half a day.”