The Devil's Waltz Read online

  “Take the road out of town west,” Carver said. “Stay west about twenty miles and you’ll ride right into it. She has a small spread, horses mostly. Tell her to come to town more often.”

  “I will,” Jack said and stood up. He set the cup on the seat and walked to his horse.

  “Hey, Jack,” Smalls said. “Watch yourself. Old Tom ain’t going to go lightly.”

  Posey rode ten miles and dismounted to give his back a rest from the saddle. He let the horse graze on thick Montana grass while he smoked a cigarette in the shade of a tree.

  He skipped breakfast because he was still full from last night’s large supper, but he felt a twinge of hunger now and dug out a large hunk of cornbread from his supplies and ate it with sips of water.

  “All right, let’s move,” he told the horse.

  Posey rode the remaining ten miles at a very slow pace. The morning sun was warm, and there didn’t seem to be a need to hurry.

  From a half mile away, he spotted Jane’s cabin and corrals. He didn’t see smoke rising from the chimney, but it was a warm morning so she probably didn’t start a fire.

  He rode to the cabin and dismounted at the corral. A dozen horses were penned inside, and a few foals were in a small, separate corral. Behind the cabin stood a red barn. Posey tied his horse at the corral and walked to the cabin.

  Chickens pecked the dirt at his feet.

  He stood at the base of the stairs of the porch.

  “Jane Canary, you in there?” he shouted.

  When there was no response, Posey went up to the porch.

  “Martha Jane, it’s Jack Posey,” he shouted.

  After a few seconds, he pushed in the unlocked door and poked his head inside the dark cabin.

  Posey closed the door and took a chair on the porch. Next to the chair was a jug of corn liquor. He pulled the cork and took a sniff.

  “God,” Posey said and replaced the cork.

  He rolled a cigarette and then removed the badge from his shirt and tucked it into a pocket.

  After about an hour or so, Posey removed his hat and sat back in the chair with the warm sun on his face and began to doze off.

  Footsteps and a rifle being cocked opened Posey’s eyes.

  Wearing dungaree pants, a long cloth coat, and carrying two hares and a Winchester rifle, Jane Canary looked at Posey. Her looks were gone now, but she still carried herself with the same self-assured confidence he remembered.

  “Howdy, Jane,” Posey said, standing up.

  Jane squinted at him, then recognition set in and she rushed up the steps and hugged Posey.

  “Jack Posey, I ain’t seen you since Deadwood,” Jane said.

  “It’s been a while, Jane.”

  Jane hung the hares over the porch railing and set the Winchester against the wall. “Sit down. Pull that cork. We need to drink a toast.”

  Posey pulled the cork and handed the jug to Jane. She took a long swallow and gave the jug to Posey.

  He took a small sip. “That’s god-awful stuff,” he said.

  “Ain’t no better corn mash,” Jane said. “So what are you doing this far north, Jack? I heard you got sent up to Yuma a few years back.”

  “I did, but the governor gave me a full pardon,” Posey said.

  “Pardon? How come?”

  “They arrested me on the word of a liar when I was working at a ranch,” Posey said. “Some cow bum said he recognized my black Colt, when I hadn’t worn it in years. He said he saw me use it rustling some cows. Once they proved that a lie, I got pardoned.”

  “Damn,” Jane said.

  “So what are you doing out here, Jane?” Posey asked.

  “Waiting on Texan Clinton Burke to come up from Texas and marry me,” Jane said. “We plan to move the ranch to Boulder, but he’s a mite slow.”

  “Well, that’s fine, Jane,” Posey said.

  “Sold eighty horses to the army at twenty-five dollars a head last year,” Jane said. “This year be a hundred.”

  Jane took another swallow from the jug and then set it on the porch.

  “So what brings you to these parts, Jack?” she asked.

  “I’m looking for my old partner, Tom Spooner.”

  Jane stared at Posey for several seconds. “He ain’t the man you knew back then, Jack,” Jane said. “He’s grown mean. Meaner than a mad rattler. You best stay clear of him.”

  “When did you last see him, Jane?” Posey asked.

  “I ain’t much to look at in the face no more,” Jane said. “Not like in ’seventy-seven when you saw me in Deadwood, but my clam works just fine and if you give me a right worthy poke, I might be inclined to talk some.”

  “I thought you said you was waiting on that Texan?” Posey said.

  “He left for Texas to gather a herd and been gone a year, the fool,” Jane said. “So how about it, Jack? Seeing you here on my porch has got my clam to itching.”

  “Tell you the truth, Jane, you could use a bath,” Posey said.

  “What month is this?”

  “May, almost June.”

  Jane shrugged.

  “I’ll go make a fire to boil some water,” Jane said. “Put that big Bowie knife you got there to good use and skin them hares. Be careful, I save the pelts.”

  The white bathtub in the barn was elevated by a wheel on each corner and large enough for two people.

  Posey sat in the hot, soapy water and looked at Jane as she got into the tub. Her body was all hard angles and muscle with little fat and curves like most city women have.

  “Gimme the soap, Jack,” Jane said. “I might as well get clean.”

  “Wash your hair, too,” Posey said. “I could grease a wagon wheel axle with the grease in your hair.”

  Jane dunked under the water and when she came up, she said, “You’re mighty particular for a man about to get a free poke, Jack, but at least you got the good sense not to call me Calamity.”

  “Good sense, hell,” Posey said. “I just don’t want to get shot is all.”

  Posey was sound asleep when he felt Jane rubbing herself against his leg and he opened his eyes.

  “What are you doing, Jane?” he asked.

  “What do you think I’m doing?” she said.

  “Dammit, Jane, I was sleeping. Besides, you said you’d tell me what you know about Spooner if we had a poke, and then you fell asleep.”

  “Well I ain’t asleep now and I want another poke,” Jane said. “Otherwise I tell you nothing.”

  “Then will you answer my questions?”

  “First thing in the morning,” Jane said as she climbed on top of Posey.

  Shirtless, wearing just his pants, Posey sat on the porch with a cup of coffee and a cigarette and let the morning sun warm his face.

  After a time, wearing long underwear, Jane came out of the house and joined him. She also had a cup of coffee, but smoked a long-stemmed pipe.

  “That was a fine breakfast, Jane,” Posey said.

  “Ain’t no point keeping chickens if you can’t steal their eggs,” Jane said. “Thanks for the bacon. Got anymore in your supply bag?”

  “Some,” Posey said. “You haven’t lost your touch, Jane. When we met in Dora DuFran’s brothel in Deadwood, I had no idea who you were back then. I do remember how sore I was after a visit, and I’m sore as hell right now.”

  “A girl had to make ends meet, especially after Wild Bill’s passing,” Jane said.

  “I’m sorry I never got to meet the man,” Jack said.

  “You would have liked him, Jack,” Jane said. “You’re a lot alike in ways. He was tall like you and took nobody’s shit, just like you, but never picked a fight that I know of. Ended a lot of them though, as I expect you have.”

  “Is it true you took a meat cleaver to Jack McCall’s head after he shot Wild Bill?” Posey asked. “I read a story about that in a newspaper.”

  Jane grinned. “Well, shoot, Jack, I wished it were true, that little shit,” she said. “But, no. They caught him and
hung him with his boots off like he deserved.”

  “Well, Jane, let’s talk,” Posey said.

  “I suppose,” Jane said. “Old Tom rode through here about a year ago with his bunch of assholes. I told him they couldn’t stay, but he said otherwise. They was running from the law and needed a place to rest up. They robbed a bank over in Rapid City and killed a few lawmen. I had no choice but to let them stay until their horses got their wind back. One of his men got the notion to crawl into bed with me during the night. I screamed and Tom woke up from where he bedded down near the fire and shot the man dead right there as if he were swatting a fly.”

  “Do you know which man it was Tom killed?” Posey asked.

  “Not by name,” Jane said. “A skinny fellow with a twitch. Had this hair so fine, it was almost white.”

  “That would be Phil ‘Whitey’ Johnson,” Posey said. “He was harmless. He was a mite touched in the head, was all.”

  “What do you want with him for anyway?” Jane asked. “You looking to partner up with him again?”

  “Not hardly,” Posey said. “He owes me money from the old days. He was supposed to deliver it to me when I was punching cows and never did. I just want what’s owed me is all.”

  “Money ain’t worth dying for, Jack,” Jane said. “Is it considerable?”

  “Around twenty-two thousand I figure.”

  “Jack, Spooner ain’t going to part with no twenty-two thousand, even if you did ride together,” Jane said.

  “I didn’t say it would be easy,” Posey said. “So tell me what you know about Tom Spooner.”

  “I know he’d shoot you on sight if you showed up asking for money,” Jane said. “Even if it’s owed you.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Posey said.

  Jane sucked on her pipe. “I hear he befriended Maybelle over to Fort Smith,” she said. “We best go see her.”

  “I don’t know any Maybelle,” Posey said.

  “Maybe you heard of her by her other name,” Jane said. “Belle Starr.”

  “Newspapers call her the Queen of American Outlaws,” Posey said.

  “That would be her.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “You can’t,” Jane said. “But I can take you to her.”

  “I ride alone, Jane,” Posey said. “I won’t be responsible for someone else’s life while I’m tracking Spooner.”

  “Then you won’t get to see Belle, and you’ll never find old Tom,” Jane said.

  “What about your Texan and this place?” Posey asked.

  “We won’t be gone that long, and I got a man coming to take the horses to the army,” Jane said. “Should be here tomorrow.”

  “Well, where do we find Belle Starr?” Posey asked.

  “Indian Nation in Arkansas,” Jane said.

  “Means we got to take the railroad,” Posey said.

  “I like the railroad, Jack. It’s quicker than a month in the saddle,” Jane said.

  “Well, you got anything better to wear than those dirty pants and coat I saw you in yesterday?” Posey asked.

  “I got a whole chest full of clothes,” Jane said. “I just got no need of wearing them out here.”

  “You sure this Belle Starr knows Tom?” Posey asked.

  “I’m sure.”

  “I guess we go see her then.”

  “Go split some wood. I got to boil some water.”

  “You just had a bath yesterday.”

  “To wash my clothes,” Jane said. “I said I had ’em. I didn’t say they was clean.”

  Posey stirred the clothes with an ax handle in the bathtub full of boiling hot water.

  Jane came into the barn carrying a basket. “Let me have them undies, Jack,” she said.

  “For God’s sake, Jane,” Posey said.

  “Never mind God and fetch my undies,” Jane said.

  Using the ax handle, Posey removed Jane’s underwear from the tub and placed them into the basket.

  “Might as well wash your own, Jack,” Jane said. “No sense wasting good washing water.”

  Jack looked at the tub, then slowly removed his shirt, tossed it in, and stirred it with the ax handle.

  By candlelight, Posey spread out a territorial map he got from Dale on the table.

  Looking over his shoulder, Jane said, “We get the railroad in Miles City south all the way to Denver, and then go east to Missouri, and then south to Fort Smith. Shouldn’t take us more than two and a half days at most.”

  “Your man will be here tomorrow?” Posey asked.

  “Before ten,” Jane said. “Now come to bed and give me a good poke, Jack.”

  Posey took a last look at the map, sighed, and blew out the candle.

  Posey and Jane sat on the porch with cups of coffee and watched the rider approach the cabin from the east. He was a good half mile off and traveling at a leisurely pace.

  “Is that your man?” Posey asked.

  “That be Jose Manuel Ortega de Lobos Santiago,” Jane said.

  “Why is it every Mexican I ever met has six names?” Posey asked.

  “I just call him Manny,” Jane said.

  “He sure don’t hurry none, does he?”

  “Got nothing to hurry for.”

  Ambling along at his slow pace, Manny finally arrived and dismounted at the corral. “I see you have company,” he said in a thick Spanish accent.

  “This is Jack Posey,” Jane said. “Come have a cup of coffee. We need to talk.”

  Manny came up to the porch where Jane filled a cup with coffee.

  “Sit,” she said.

  Manny took a chair and sipped from the cup.

  “Me and Jack is taking a business trip down to Arkansas,” Jane said. “I reckon I’ll be gone close to two weeks. I want you and Jack here to gather up all the horses and bring them in. I figure we got close to sixty. After me and Jack leave tomorrow, you take them horses to the army and don’t take less than twenty-five a head. You do and I’ll skin you, you hear me?”

  “What about the foals?” Manny asked.

  “Take them to your place and watch them for me until I get back,” Jane said. “Give your wife and eight kids something to do besides nag at you all day.”

  Manny looked at Posey. “Can you cowboy?”

  “I can cowboy,” Jack said.

  “Then get off my porch and go do it,” Jane said.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  * * *

  Posey proved to be a fair hand at cowboying, and by late afternoon, he and Manny had some sixty horses herded into the large corral.

  “Jane is not here,” Manny said when they tied their horses at the corral.

  “Probably went hunting,” Posey said.

  “You cowboy pretty good for a man with a gun like that on his hip,” Manny said.

  “One’s got nothing to do with the other,” Posey said. “I got a pint bottle of good sipping whiskey in my gear. Let’s go up to the porch, have a snort, and wait for Jane.”

  “My wife does not allow liquor in the house,” Manny said as he and Posey went to the porch and took chairs. “I usually have to wait until I see Jane and drink that lantern oil she keeps in a jug.”

  Posey opened the pint bottle and handed it to Manny. “What they call Tennessee sipping whiskey,” he said.

  Manny took a small sip from the bottle. “Much better than Jane’s sour mash,” he said and passed the bottle to Posey.

  Posey took a sip and nodded. “What they use to thin paint is better than her mash.”

  Posey handed the bottle to Manny and dug out his tobacco pouch. “You really have eight kids?”

  “Nine, come this fall.”

  “How do you feed so many working horses?”

  “I take horses to the army for six or seven local ranchers,” Manny said. “Maybe five, six hundred head in a year. I get two dollars for each horse I take in. My wife, she has gardens and she grows all kinds of fruits and vegetables. Potatoes and corn and sometimes pumpkins.”
/>   “Pumpkins?”

  “My wife, she fries them and also makes pies with them.”

  Posey struck a match and lit the cigarette.

  “My wife doesn’t allow tobacco in the house, too,” Manny said.

  Posey grinned and tossed Manny the pouch and papers. “She’s a good Christian woman, huh?”

  “No, a Mormon.”

  “Well, hell, she isn’t going to stop until you got at least twenty running around,” Posey said.

  Jane came around the side of the cabin holding a large turkey.

  “Ain’t it just like men to waste time drinking whiskey when there’s work to be done,” she said.

  “All the horses are in the corral,” Manny said.

  Jane slung the turkey over the porch railing and took a chair. “What have you got there, Jack?”

  Posey handed Jane the bottle.

  She read the label and then took three long swallows. “Never been to Tennessee,” she said and handed the bottle to Posey.

  Posey looked at the bottle. Jane had siphoned off a third and didn’t as much as flinch.

  “How many foals you bring in?” Jane asked.

  “Seven,” Manny said.

  “Take all the foals to your place until I return,” Jane said. “And have your two oldest come by every other day and gather up the chicken eggs. No sense letting them go to waste.”

  “I will do that,” Manny said.

  “Don’t forget to cut your two dollars out when you sell ’em,” Jane said.

  “I won’t forget,” Manny said.

  “Now take that turkey home to that crazy wife of yours before it gets dark,” Jane said. “Or she might put some witch’s spell on me.”

  “She’s Mormon, not a gypsy, Jane,” Manny said.

  “I can’t tell the difference,” Jane said. “Now go.”

  Manny stood, took the turkey, and looked at Posey. “Maybe we can cowboy again sometime,” he said.

  “Maybe,” Posey said.

  After Manny rode away, Jane said, “Chop some wood, Jack. I’m going to have another bath so I’m clean for tomorrow.”

  “Hold still or I’ll cut you for sure,” Jane said.

  “I don’t see why a man can’t shave his own damn face,” Posey said.