Last Stand at Saber River - Leonard Elmore John (читать книги txt) 📗

Janroe paused and the tone of his voice dropped. “But there was one battery of theirs on a ridge behind a stone fence. I was taking some men up there to get them…and the next day I woke up in a Richmond field hospital without an arm.”

He was watching Cable closely. “You see what I mean? We’d licked them. The fight was over and put away. But because of this one battery not knowing enough to give up, or too scared to, I lost a good arm.”

But you’ve got one left and you’re out of the war, so why don’t you forget about it, Cable thought, and almost said it; but instead he nodded, looking at the shelves.

“Maybe Luz told you I was in the army,” Janroe said.

“No, only your name, and that you own part of the store.”

“That’s a start. What else do you want to know?”

“Why you’re here.”

“You just said it. Because I own part of the store.”

“Then how you came to be here.”

“You’ve got a suspicious mind.”

“Look,” Cable said quietly, “John Denaman was a friend of mine. He dies suddenly and you arrive to buy in.”

“That’s right. But you want to know what killed him?”

When Cable said nothing Janroe’s eyes lifted to the almost bare shelves. “He didn’t have enough goods to sell. He didn’t have regular money coming in. He worried, not knowing what was going to happen to his business.” Janroe’s gaze lowered to Cable again. “He even worried about Luz and Vern Kidston. They were keeping company and, I’m told, the old man didn’t see eye to eye with Vern. Because of different politics, you might say. So it was a combination of things that killed him. Worries along with old age. And if you think it was anything else, you’re going on pure imagination.”

“Let’s go back to Vern Kidston,” Cable said. “I never heard of him; so what you’re saying doesn’t mean a whole lot.”

Janroe’s faint smile appeared. “Vern came along about two years ago, I’m told. He makes his living supplying the Union cavalry with remounts. Delivers them up to Fort Buchanan.”

“He lives near here?”

“In the old Toyopa place. How far’s that from you?”

“About six miles.”

“They say Vern’s fixed it up.”

“It’d take a lot of fixing. The house was half burned down.”

“Vern’s got the men.”

“I’ll have to meet him.”

“You will. You’ll meet him all right.”

Cable’s eyes held on Janroe. “It sounds like you can hardly wait.”

“There’s your suspicious mind again.” Janroe straightened and stepped into the next room. “Come on. It’s time I poured you a drink.”

Cable followed, his gaze going from left to right around the well-remembered room: from the door that led to the kitchen to the roll-top desk to the Hatch & Hodges calendar to the corner fireplace and the leather-bottomed chairs, to the pictures of the Holy Family and the Sierra Madre landscapes on the wall, to the stairway leading to the second floor (four rooms up, Cable remembered), and finally to the round dining table between the front windows. He watched Janroe go into the kitchen and come out with a bottle of mescal and two glasses, holding the glasses in his fingers and the bottle pressed between his arm and his body.

Janroe nodded to the table. “Sit down. You’re going to need this.”

Cable pulled out a chair and stepped over it. He watched Janroe sit down and pour the clear, colorless liquor.

“Does my needing this have to do with Vern Kidston?”

Janroe sipped his mescal and put his glass down gently. “Vern’s the one living in your house. Not Vern himself. Some of his men.” Janroe leaned closer as if to absorb a reaction from Cable. “They’re living in your house with part of Vern’s horse herd grazing in your meadow.”

“Well”-Cable raised the glass of mescal, studying it in the light of the window behind Janroe-“I don’t blame him. It’s good graze.” He drank off some of the sweet-tasting liquor. “But now he’ll move his men out. That’s all.”

“You think so?”

“If he doesn’t vacate I’ll get the law.”

“What law?”

“Fort Buchanan. That’s closest.”

“And who do you think the Yankees would side with,” Janroe asked, “the ex-Rebel or the mustanger supplying them with remounts?”

Janroe looked up and Cable turned in his chair as Luz entered from the store. Behind her came Martha holding Sandy’s hand and moving Clare and Davis along in front of her.

“We’ll see what happens,” Cable said. He rose, holding out his hand as Davis ran to him and stood close against his leg.

“Mr. Janroe, this is my wife, Martha.” He glanced at Janroe who had made no move to rise. “This boy here is Davis. The little one’s Sanford and our big girl there is Clare, almost seven years old already.” Cable winked at his daughter, but she was staring with open curiosity at Janroe’s empty sleeve.

Martha’s hand went to the little girl’s shoulder and she smiled pleasantly at the man still hunched over the table.

“Mr. Janroe”-Martha spoke calmly-“you don’t know how good it is to be back here again.” She was worried one of the children might ask about Janroe’s missing arm. Cable knew this. He could sense it watching her, though outwardly Martha was at ease.

Luz said, “I invited them for dinner.”

Janroe was staring at Clare. She looked away and his eyes went to Davis, holding him, as if defying him to speak. Then, slowly, he sat back and looked up at Luz.

“Take the kids with you. They’ll eat in the kitchen.”

Luz hesitated, then nodded quickly and held out her hand to Sandy. The boy looked up at her and pressed closer into his mother’s skirts.

“They’re used to being with me,” Martha said pleasantly. Gently she urged Clare forward, smiling at Luz now, though the Mexican woman did not return her smile. “While Cabe…while Paul was away the children didn’t have the opportunity to meet many new people. I’m afraid they’re just a little bit strange now.”

“If they eat,” Janroe said, “they still eat in the kitchen.”

Martha’s face colored. “Mr. Janroe, I was merely explaining-”

“The point is, Mrs. Cable, there’s nothing to explain. In this house kids don’t sit at the table with grownups.”

Martha felt the heat on her face and she glanced at her husband, at Cable who stood relaxed with the calm, tell-nothing expression she had learned to understand and respect. It isn’t your place to answer him, she thought. But now the impulse was too strong and she could no longer hold back her words, though when she spoke her voice was calm and controlled.

“Now that you’ve said it three times, Mr. Janroe, we will always remember that in this house children do not eat with grownups.”

“Mrs. Cable”-Janroe spoke quietly, sitting straight up and with his hand flat and unmoving on the table-“if your husband has one friend around here it’s going to be me. Not because I’m pro-South or anti-Union. Not because I favor the man who’s at a disadvantage. But because I don’t have a reason not to befriend your husband. Now that’s a pretty flimsy basis for a friendship.”

“If you think I was rude,” Martha said patiently, “I apologize. Perhaps I did-”

“Just wait a minute.” Janroe brought up his hand to stop her. “I want you to realize something. I want you to understand that I don’t have to smile at your husband for his business. If you don’t trade with me you go to Fort Buchanan and that’s a two-day trip. Add to that, I do business with the Kidstons. They buy most of the goods as fast as I receive them. And I’ll tell you right now, once they learn I’m dealing with your husband they’re going to come in here and yell for me to stop.”

“Mr. Janroe-”

“But you know what I’ll answer them? I’ll tell them to go to Buchanan or hell with their business, either one. Because no man on earth comes into my house and tells me what I can do or what I can’t do. Not Vern Kidston or his brother; not you or your husband here.”

Janroe relaxed against the back of his chair. “That’s how it is, Mrs. Cable. I’d suggest you think about it before you speak out the first thing that comes to your mind.”