Blood Money and Other Stories Read online

  Judge Metairie looked at his watch and asked what time was the stage back to Las Cruces, and when somebody told him not till three o'clock, he said that they might as well adjourn for dinner then and let the jury reach their verdict over a nice meal though he didn't see where they'd have much thinking to do.

  Court reconvened at one thirty. The jury foreman stood up, waited for the talking to die, then said how they allowed Bobby Valdez sure couldn't be anything else but guilty.

  Judge Metairie nodded, gaveled the register desk to restore order, waited until the quiet could be felt, then in the voice of doom sentenced Roberto Eladio Viscarra y Valdez, on the morning one week from this day, to be hanged by the neck until dead.

  Criminal Sessions Court was closed and most people felt Judge Metairie had turned in a betterthan usual performance.

  Saturday evening Lyall Quinlan went on duty at the Tularosa Jail.

  It came about because Bohannon was scheduled to play poker and Quinlan arrived just at the right time. He came looking for the job; still, he was taken by surprise when Bohannon offered it to him, "temporarily, you understand," because he'd been turned down so many times before. Lyall Quinlan wanted to be a lawman, but Bohannon always put him off with the excuse that he already had an assistant, Barney Groom, and Barney served the purpose even if he was an old man.

  But Bohannon was thinking maybe an extra night man ought to be on with Valdez upstairs, a man to sit up there and watch him. He was supposed to play cards tonight, which disallowed him.

  Then, lo and behold, there was young Lyall Quinlan coming in the door!

  "Lyall, you musta heard me wishin' for you."

  Then, seeing the astonishment come over the boy's face a thin face with big, self conscious eyes he thought: Hell, Lyall's all right. Even if he doesn't pack much weight, he's honest. And he rode in the posse that brought in Valdez. An eager boy like him'd make a good deputy! For what he considered would be a temporary period, Bohannon convinced himself that Quinlan would do just fine. Tomorrow he could always kick him the hell out. . . .

  "Barney, give Lyall here a scattergun and tell him what to do," and Bohannon was gone.

  Lyall Quinlan sat up all night watching Bobby Valdez. That is, most of the time he sat in the canebottom chair it was in the hallway facing the one cell they had upstairs he was keeping his eyes on Valdez, who hardly paid him any attention. Whenever Lyall would start to get sleepy, he'd get up, crook the sawed off scattergun under his arm, and pace up and down in the short hallway.

  The first time he did it, Bobby Valdez, who was lying on his back with his eyes closed, opened them, turned his head enough to see Lyall, and told him to shut up. It was his boots making the noise.

  But Lyall went right on walking up and down.

  Valdez called on one of the men saints then and asked him why did all keepers of jails wear squeaky boots? The lamp hanging out in the hall didn't seem to bother him, only Lyall's boots.

  When Lyall kept on walking, the Mexican said something else, half smiling a low voiced string of soft spoken Spanish.

  Lyall edged closer to the cell and said through the heavy iron bars, "Hush up!"

  Valdez went to sleep right after that and Lyall sat in the chair again, feeling pretty good, not so tense anymore.

  Let him try something, Lyall thought, watching the sleeping Mexican, feeling the shotgun across his lap. I'd blast him before he got through the door. He practice swung the gun around. Cut him right in half. Boy, it was heavy. Only about fifteen inches of barrel left and really heavy. Imagine what that'd do to a man!

  He kept watching the sleeping man, his eyes going from the high black boots to the lavender shirt and the dark face, the composed, soft featured dark face.

  How can he sleep? Next Saturday he's going to swing from the end of a rope and he's laying there sleeping. Well, some people are built different. If he wasn't different he wouldn't be in that cell. But he ain't more'n a year older than I am.

  How could he have already done so much in his life? And killed the men he has? Two at White Sands, one in Mesilla. Tanner. Lyall's thumb went over the tips of his fingers. That's four. Then two more way over to Pima County. At least six, though some claim nine and ten. And Elodie thrilled to death because she served him his dinner the night he shot Tanner. They say he was something with the girls which about proves that they don't use their heads for much more than a place to grow hair.

  Well, he just better not try to come out of that cell. About a minute later Lyall went over and jiggled the door to make sure it was still locked.

  Barney Groom came up when it was daylight, and seeing Lyall just sitting there he blinked like he couldn't believe what his eyes told him. "You awake?"

  Lyall rose. "Of course."

  "Son, you mean you've been awake all night?"

  "I thought I was hired to watch this prisoner."

  Old Barney Groom shook his head.

  "What's the matter?"

  "Nothin'," Barney said. Then, "Bohannon's downstairs."

  Lyall said, "He want to see me?"

  "When you go out he won't be able to help it," said Barney.

  "Well, and when should I come back?"

  "I ain't the timekeeper. Ask Bohannon about that."

  They heard footsteps on the stairs and then Bohannon was in the hallway, yawning, scratching his shirtfront.

  Barney Groom said, "Ed, this boy stayed awake all night!"

  Bohannon stopped scratching, though he didn't drop his hand. He looked at Lyall Quinlan, who nodded and said, "Mr. Bohannon."

  The marshal squinted in the dim light. It was plain he'd been drinking, the way his eyes looked filmy, though he stood there with his feet planted and didn't sway a bit. Finally he said, "You don't say!"

  "All night," Barney Groom said.

  Bohannon looked at him. "How would you know?"

  "He was awake when I come up."

  Bohannon said nothing.

  "Mr. Bohannon," Lyall said, "I didn't go to sleep."

  "Maybe you did and maybe you did not."

  Bobby Valdez had been watching them. Now he swung his legs off the bunk. He stood up and moved toward the bars. "He's telling the truth," the Mexican said.

  Bohannon put his cold eyes on Valdez for a moment, then looked back at Lyall Quinlan.

  Valdez shrugged. "It don't make any difference to me," he said. "But make him grease his boots if he's going to walk all night."

  Barney Groom moved a step toward the cell as if threatening Valdez. "You got any more requests?"

  "Yes," the Mexican said right away. "I want to go to church."

  "What?" Barney Groom said, then was embarrassed for having looked like he'd taken the Mexican seriously, and added, "Sure. I'll send the carriage around."

  Valdez looked at him without expression. "This is Sunday."

  Bohannon was squinting and half smiling. "Any special denomination, Brother Valdez?"

  "Listen, man," Valdez said, "this is Sunday, and I have to go to mass."

  Bohannon asked, "You go to mass every Sunday?"

  "I've missed some."

  Bohannon, with the half smile, went on studying him. Then he said, "Tell you what. We'll douse you with a bucket of holy water instead."

  Bohannon and Groom left right after that. Lyall was to stay until one or the other came back from breakfast.

  When he was alone again, Lyall looked at Valdez sitting on the bunk. Even after the words were ready he waited a good ten minutes before saying them. "The nearest church is down to White Sands," he told Valdez. "You can't blame the marshal for not wanting to ride you all the way down there."

  Valdez looked up.

  "It's so far," Lyall Quinlan said. He looked toward the window at the end of the hallway, then back to Valdez. "I appreciate you telling the marshal I was awake all night. I think something like that sets pretty good with him." Bobby Valdez looked at Lyall curiously. Then his expression softened to a smile, as if he'd suddenly become aware of a new
interest, and he said, "Anytime, friend."

  When Bohannon came back he sent Lyall across the street to the Regent to get Valdez's breakfast.

  After he'd given the tray to Valdez, Bohannon deputized him, but mentioned how it was a temporary appointment until the Citizens Committee passed on it. "Now, if you was to keep an extra special eye on Brother Valdez, I'd have to recommend you as fit, wouldn't I?" He patted Lyall's shoulder and said now was as good a time as any to start the new appointment. "We'll see how you handle yourself alone."

  Lyall thought it was a funny way to do things, but he'd have plenty of time for sleep later on.

  When opportunity knocks on the door you got to open it, he told himself. So he stayed on at the jail, sitting downstairs this time, until midafternoon when Bohannon came back.

  "Now get yourself some shut eye, boy," the marshal told him, "so you'll be in fit shape for tonight."

  Lyall's mother told him they were making a fool out of him, but Lyall didn't have time to argue. He just said this was what he always wanted to do a hell of a lot better than working behind a store counter, though he didn't use quite those words.

  Lyall's mother used mother arguments, but finally there was nothing she could do but shake her head and let him go to bed.

  He went back on duty at nine, sitting in the canebottom chair, not hearing a sound from Barney Groom downstairs. Bobby Valdez was more talkative. He talked about horses and girls and the terrible fact that he hadn't gotten to church that day; then made a big to do admiring Lyall for the way he could go so long without sleep. That was fine.

  But pretty soon Bobby Valdez went to sleep and that night Lyall walked up and down the little hallway even more than he had the first night. Two or three times he almost went to sleep, but he kept moving and blinking his eyes. He found a way of propping the shotgun between his leg and the chair arm, so that the trigger guard dug into his thigh and that kept him awake whenever he sat down to rest.

  In the morning Bohannon came up the stairs quietly, but Lyall heard him and said, "Hi, Mr. Bohannon," when the marshal tiptoed in.

  Lyall slept all day Monday and after that he was all right, not having any trouble keeping awake that night. Bobby Valdez talked to him until late and that helped.

  Tuesday he ate his supper at the Regent Cafe before going to work. He mentioned weather to Elodie and how the food was getting better, but didn't once refer to the silver deputy star on his shirtfront. Elodie tried to be unconcerned, too, but finally she just had to ask him, and Lyall answered, "Why, sure, Elodie, I've been a deputy marshal since last Saturday. Didn't you know that?"

  Elodie had to describe how Bobby Valdez came in for dinner the night he shot Tanner. "He sat right on that very stool you're on and ate tacos like he didn't have a worry in the world. Real calm."

  Lyall said, "Uh huh, but he's kind of a little squirt, ain't he?" and walked out casually, knowing Elodie was watching after him with her mouth open.

  Tuesday night Valdez told Lyall how his being in the cell had all come about how he'd started out an honest vaquero down in Sonora, but got mixed up with some unprincipled men who were chousing other people's cows. Bobby Valdez said, by the name of a saint, he didn't know anything about it, but the next thing the rurales were chasing him across the border. About a year later, in Contention, Arizona, he killed a man. It was in selfdefense and he was acquitted; but the man had a friend, so he ended up killing the friend too. And after that it was just one thing leading to another.

  Everybody seemed to take him wrong . . . couldn't get an honest job . . . so what was a young man supposed to do?

  The way he described it made Lyall Quinlan shake his head and say it was a shame.

  Wednesday night Bobby Valdez only nodded to Lyall when he came on duty. The Mexican was sitting on the edge of the bunk, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands as he washed them together absently.

  He's finally realizing he's going to die, Lyall thought. You have to leave a man alone when he's doing that. So for over an hour no one spoke.

  When Lyall did speak it was because he wanted to make it a little easier for Valdez. He said, "All people have to die. That's the best way to look at it."

  Valdez looked up, then nodded thoughtfully.

  "You got to look at it," Lyall went on, "like, well, just something that happens to everybody."

  "I've done that," the Mexican said. "What torments me now is that I have not confessed."

  "You didn't have to," Lyall said. "Judge Metairie found out the facts without you confessing."

  "No, I mean to a priest."

  "Oh."

  "It is a terrible thing to die without absolution."

  "Oh."

  It was quiet then, Lyall frowning, the Mexican looking at his hands. But suddenly Bobby Valdez looked up, his face brightening, and he said, as if it had just occurred to him, "My friend, would you bring a priest to me?"

  "Well I'll tell Mr. Bohannon in the morning.

  I'm sure he'll "

  "No!" Valdez stood up quickly. "I cannot take the chance of letting him know!" His voice calmed as he said, "You know how he makes fun of things spiritual that about the holy water, and calling me 'Brother.' What if he should refuse this request?

  Then I would die in the state of mortal sin just because he does not understand. My friend," he said just above a whisper, "surely you can see that he must not know."

  "Well " Lyall said.

  "In White Sands," Valdez said quickly, "there is a man called Sixto Henriquez who knows the priest well. At the mescal shop they'll tell you where he lives. Now, all you would have to do is tell Sixto to send the priest late Friday night after it is very quiet, and then it will be accomplished."

  Lyall hesitated.

  "Then," Valdez said solemnly, "I would not die in sin."

  Lyall thought about it some more and finally he nodded.

  He woke up at noon for the ride to White Sands.

  He'd have to hurry to be back in time to go on duty; but he would have hurried anyway because he didn't feel right about what he was doing, as if it was something sneaky. At the mescal shop the proprietor directed him, in as few words as were necessary, to the adobe of Sixto Henriquez. Lyall was half afraid and half hoping Sixto wouldn't be home. But there he was, a thin little man in a striped shirt who didn't open the door all the way until Lyall mentioned Valdez.

  After Lyall had told why he was there, Henriquez took his time rolling a cigarette. He lit it and blew out smoke and then said, "All right."

  Lyall rode back to Tularosa feeling a lot better.

  That hadn't been hard at all.

  When he went on duty that night he said to Bobby Valdez, "You're all set," and would just as soon have let it go at that, but Valdez insisted that he tell him everything. He told him. There wasn't much to it how the man just said, "All right." But Valdez seemed to be satisfied.

  Friday morning Lyall stopped at the Regent Cafe for his breakfast. Elodie was serving the counter.

  She was frowning and muttering about being switched to mornings just the day before Bobby Valdez's hanging.

  Lyall told her, "A nice girl like you don't want to see a hanging."

  "It's the principle of it," she pouted. The principle being everybody in Tularosa was excited about Bobby Valdez hanging whether they had a stomach for it or not.

  "Lyall, don't you get scared up there alone with him?" she said with a little shiver that might have been partly real.

  "What's there to be scared of? He's locked in a cell."

  "What if one of his friends should come to help him?" Elodie said.

  "How could a man like that have friends?"

  "Well I worry about you, Lyall."

  Lyall stopped being calm, his whole face grinning. "Do you, Elodie?"

  And that's what Lyall was thinking about when he went on duty Friday night. About Elodie.

  Barney Groom was sitting at Bohannon's rolltop with his feet propped up, looking like he was ready to go to sl
eep. He said to Lyall, " 'Night's the last night. After the hanging we can relax a little."

  Lyall went upstairs and sat down in the canebottom chair still thinking about Elodie: how she looked like a little girl when she pouted. A deputy marshal can probably support a wife, he thought.

  Still, he wasn't so sure, since Bohannon hadn't mentioned salary to him yet.

  Bobby Valdez said, "This is the night the priest comes."

  Lyall looked up. "I almost forgot. Bet you feel better already."

  "As if I have risen from the dead," Bobby Valdez said.

  Later on Lyall didn't have a timepiece on him but he estimated it was shortly after midnight he heard the noise downstairs. Not a strange noise; it was just that it came unexpectedly in the quiet. He looked over at Bobby Valdez. Still asleep. For the next few minutes it was quiet again.

  Then he heard footsteps on the stairs. It must be the priest, Lyall thought, getting up. He'd told the man to tell the priest to just walk by Barney, who'd probably be asleep, and if he wasn't, just explain the whole thing. So Barney was either asleep or had agreed.

  Lyall wasn't prepared for the robed figure that stepped into the hallway. He'd expected a priest in a regular black suit; but then he remembered the priest at White Sands was the kind who wore a long robe and sandals.

  Lyall said, "Father?"

  That end of the hallway was darker and Lyall couldn't see him very well, and now as he came forward, Lyall still couldn't see his face because the cowl, the hood part of the robe, was up over his head. His arms were folded, with his hands up in the big sleeves.

  "Father?"

  "My son."

  Lyall turned to the cell. "He's right here, Father."

  Valdez was standing at the bars and it struck Lyall suddenly that he hadn't heard Valdez get up. He turned his head to look at the priest and felt the gun barrel jab against his back.

  "Place your weapon on the floor," the voice behind him said.

  Bobby Valdez added, "My son," smiling now.

  The man behind Lyall reached past him to hand the ring of jail keys to Valdez. As he did, the cowl fell back and Lyall saw the man he'd talked to in White Sands. Sixto Henriquez.