The next morning, over the breakfast table, Mrs McKenzie was full of news of the shooting by the blacksmith’s shop.
‘Dead, Reverend Faulkner,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Shot down and killed behind the blacksmith’s. Can you believe it?’
‘There is a deal of wickedness in the world, ma’am,’ he told her gravely, ‘a deal of wickedness.’ This was a true enough statement and did not trouble the pastor’s conscience from the point of view of telling lies. After all, there surely was a deal of wickedness in the world!
‘They say it was some of those Comancheros falling out with each other. Maybe some quarrel over a woman,’ said Mrs McKenzie primly. At that moment there was a knock on the door and when she opened it, the lodging-house keeper found standing right there on her doorstep just exactly the sort of woman you might expect Comancheros to be quarrelling about and killing each other over. It was none other than Marie, the girl whose acquaintance Faulkner had made the previous night.
Mrs McKenzie pursed her lips disapprovingly when the young woman asked to see the ‘Reverend gentleman’.
‘It’s all right ma’am,’ said Faulkner, ‘I think that this young person is seeking my advice about the future course that her life should be taking. Is that not so, my child?’
Marie looked a little confused. ‘I guess.’
‘Come, we will take a walk up and down Main Street and I shall endeavour to counsel you about your prospects.’ After he had fetched his coat and left Mrs McKenzie almost expiring from avid curiosity, having declined her offer of consulting with the saloon girl right there in her parlour, the pastor walked with Marie along the street.
He observed that she was shaken and her face white, as though she had not slept the previous night. ‘I swear to you, Father, I had no idea what that scoundrel purposed last night. He told me that you were some type of investigator tricked out as a parson and he wanted to know what your game was.’
‘You’ve no occasion to call me ‘Father’; I’m a Presbyterian, not a Catholic. How come you’re not afeared to be seen walking in the streets with me today? I’m guessing that some of those fellows had some sort of hold over you?’
Marie turned and eyed him keenly. ‘Yes, that is so. Or at least, it was so, but it was really just the one, him as was killed. He had enough to get me hung if he cared to open his mouth. But you know what, Preacher? He’s dead now and so I’m my own woman again. Say, did you shoot him? I guessed you must have, you meeting him there last night and then him getting killed. Was it you?’
‘That’s nothing to the purpose. What did you come by the lodging house for?’
‘To answer the questions that you were asking last night. I reckon I owe you. What do you want to know?’ Reverend Faulkner stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at the young girl beside him. He could not make up his mind whether or not this was another trick and that she had it in mind to lead him into danger again. Still and all, he didn’t rightly see that he had much choice in the matter. It was no manner of use for him to go blundering off into Palo Duro blind, without comprehending what he was up against. ‘What is it that you would tell me? I am seeking the whereabouts of six girls and two grown women who were seized by some Kiowa and then sold to a band of Comancheros. Can you set me on their trail? If so, then you would be doing a good piece of work, which might be offset by the Lord against whatever evil you have in the past been mixed up in.’
‘I don’t know nothing about the Lord. You saved me from being blackmailed for the rest of my life and I am glad of it. I owe you. I will pay the debt. Yes, I know the business of which you speak and can lead you to the hideout where those children are being held.’
‘That will not be needful. Only set me on the right track. Give me the directions to the place and I will ride alone. I would not wish to cast you into hazard.’
The woman snorted. ‘I been cast into hazard often enough. Don’t set mind to that. I am not one for writing or nothing. It is no good expecting me to draw you a map or nothing of that sort. I can lead you there. If you don’t want that, then we can forget the entire thing.’
‘So be it. Have you a horse?’
‘Got a pony; that’s enough for a little thing like me.’
‘I do not see that there is any percentage in advertising our association. This would not be to my advantage or yours, either, likely enough. I will guess that the road west from here is the beginning of the way. Is that so?’
‘I like the way you talk. Are you really a preacher?’
‘I am that.’
‘Say we team up in two hours, about a mile west of here on that track?’
‘That would do admirably. I shall look forward to it.’
‘See you in a spell, then.’ Before he went back to Mrs McKenzie’s place to pick up his things and settle his bill, Pastor Faulkner decided to pay a visit to the store and see if they had anything that might be useful to him on his expedition.
The store was a gloomy and ill-lit room in a rickety wooden building, just along the way from the livery stable. There were the usual things like large cans of lamp oil, glass chimneys, pots, pans, spades, bolts of cloth and so on, as well as a glass-fronted case containing an assortment of firearms. The proprietor came out of the back and greeted Faulkner amiably.
‘Not often we get a man of the cloth in here, Padre. Looking for anything special?’
‘I am wondering if you happen to have such a thing as a muff pistol? I mean a derringer or some such.’
‘Sure we have, right here, look. Little .41-calibre numbers, perfect for the ladies.’ He took one out of the cabinet to show Faulkner. ‘Anything else?’
‘Do you sell black powder?’
‘Yes, sir, I got some right out the back.’
‘You have fuses, too?’
The shopkeeper was looking at the preacher like he was some rare freak of nature. ‘Reverend, you don’t mind me asking, is all this for you?’
‘It is.’
‘You ain’t aiming to pass any of it on to a minor?’
‘Why would I do that?’ ‘I have to ask, it’s the law.’
‘No, it’s for my own use. You want me to sign your book for the pistol?’
The shopkeeper passed the register over to Pastor Faulkner, and pushed an inkwell and pen towards him. ‘You want any ammunition for the derringer?’
‘Yes, let me have a box of .41 rimfire if you have them, please.’
‘How much powder you want?’
‘Tell me, do you have a five-pound keg?’
‘That we do.’ After Faulkner had made his purchases and left the store, the owner went out and stared after him as he walked back to Mrs McKenzie’s house. ‘That surely is the strangest preacher that I have come across in a good, long time,’ he said to himself.
A small child was hurrying down the street, carrying an open pitcher in her hand. She could not have been more than seven or eight and Jonas Faulkner shook his head disapprovingly at the sight of such a little thing being sent to run errands instead of sitting in a schoolroom. As the little girl trotted past an elegantly dressed, middle-aged, swarthy-looking man, she stumbled slightly and a stray splash from the jug shot up and left a few spots on the man’s cream-coloured breeches.
‘Why, you little . . .’ the fellow said and lifted his hand to take a swipe at the scared child, who was already stuttering an apology. Before he could bring his hand down on the girl’s head, his wrist was suddenly clamped fast in what felt like an immovable vice. He struggled to free his arm and then turned in amazement to see who had had the unspeakable temerity to lay hands on the person of Alfonso Rodriquez y Trevisa y Gonsalez.
Before releasing the stranger’s wrist, Faulkner told the child, ‘You run along now, little britches. I saw what happened; it was a pure accident. Don’t be afeared.’ The little girl stared at him for a second and then went swiftly on her way. Pastor Faulkner turned to the man whose arm he had a hold of. ‘As for you, my friend, you need to be a little more careful about striking children. I could, if I had the time, show you the relevant passages in scripture, but I am guessing that you are a Catholic and perhaps know of them already. Set a watch upon that temper of yours, or it will lead you astray some day.’
He let go of the man’s arm and made to move off.
‘Wait,’ said the man. Faulkner turned back. ‘You are right. I have had a bad day and should not have behaved as I did. You are a man of God?’
‘I am.’
‘You love children also, I think?’ Faulkner said nothing, but looked at the man, trying to gauge his intentions. ‘I think I saw you in the cantina last night,’ said the well-dressed man. I was astonished to see you deal so neatly with those two hot-headed boys. You did not act then as I think many priests would have been able to do. What is your name?’
‘Faulkner. Jonas Faulkner.’ The man stretched out his hand. ‘Well, Mr Faulkner, or should I say Reverend Faulkner? You are really a priest? Will you shake my hand?’
They shook and Faulkner touched his hat brim to the fellow before stalking off to the lodging house. The Spanish-looking man, who was actually Portuguese, gazed after him thoughtfully.
Mrs McKenzie was just itching to find out the nature of Faulkner’s business with Marie. Something about her put the minister strongly in mind of Mrs O’Hara. She had the same rare gift for cross-examining a man mercilessly under the pretext of an elderly widow’s artless chatter.
‘That young woman, now. I would have taken oath that she was not the sort to be seeking out a parson. But perhaps I measured her character wrong?’ Pastor Faulkner made an indistinct and non-committal noise in his throat that could have been taken equally well as assent or protest. ‘I see you have been to the store. You should have let me go for you. I am there regular as clockwork each day. What would you have in that wooden keg, now, Reverend Faulkner? It wouldn’t be brandy, would it?’ She dimpled engagingly to indicate to Faulkner that she had been joking.
‘It is not brandy, ma’am. I’m a temperance man and have been these many years. Strong drink makes weak men, as they say.’
‘Amen to that. I never touch a drop, ‘cept for medicinal purposes, of course.’
‘I have not the least doubt of it, ma’am. I would not bring intoxicating liquor into a respectable house; you may make sure of that.’
‘That girl, now. Marie, is it? Would she be stopping to work in a saloon after you have counselled her? That would be a mercy!’
‘It would be, Mrs McKenzie, but even the Devil does not know what lies in a man or woman’s heart. We can but hope, ma’am, we can but hope.’
‘Will you be staying tonight, Pastor? I have a piece of lamb in that would do you a power of good. You look to be like a man who does not take care of his body enough.’
‘Alas, ma’am, I must be leaving this very day in half an hour or so. Would it be putting you out if I were to ask you to prepare me some cold meat, cheese and a loaf of bread? I shall, of course, expect the reckoning of it to be added to my bill, which I shall settle this minute if it is agreeable to you?’
While the good widow was fluttering about, preparing what she described as a ‘picnic’ for him and calculating how much she could gouge him for, Faulkner went to his room to prepare for the next stage of his journey. He opened the keg of powder and poured a little into his palm. It was fine-grained and pitch black. He smelt it and then rolled a few grains between his finger and thumb. ‘Well, Jonas, you can never carry too much powder with you and that’s a fact. You never know when a pound or two of black powder is apt to be just what you need.’ In his younger days he had been in the habit of carrying a few pounds of black powder in his saddlebag, the way another man might keep tobacco.
He stripped down his pistol and emptied out the powder that he had charged it with before setting out from Claremont. True, it had fired well enough last night, but it would do no harm to use some fresh powder. The stuff from his attic had been mouldering away up there for over a decade. After a drop of oil, he loaded the Colt with the new powder and then emptied the old charges out the window into the flowerbed. He then loaded the little muff gun, which was not a genuine derringer but one of the many cheap imitations, and tucked it in his boot.
The widow McKenzie watched him craftily as he read the bill, which she presented for one night’s lodging, two meals, a few ounces of bacon and cheese and half a loaf of yesterday’s bread. She was overcharging him, but not by as much as he had thought she might. Why, he wondered, are people so ready to cheat a clergyman? He was sure that Mrs McKenzie would not have inflated her bill so readily had he been a travelling salesman.
After he and the good widow had sworn undying friendship for each other and he had promised to stay there the very next time he should happen to find himself in Santa Pueblo, the preacher managed to tear himself away and get off to the livery stable to pick up his horse. I wonder by how much that fellow will think he can rob a poor old parson, thought Faulkner gloomily, as he strode down Main Street. A couple of dark-skinned men touched their hats to him as he passed. He had an idea that his dispute with the two boys the previous night had been witnessed and widely discussed in the town. It struck him that by the time he came back here, the widow McKenzie would also be likely to have heard the story. That might change her view of me entirely, he thought.
As soon as he had been duly cheated by the owner of the livery stable, although to a somewhat lesser degree than had been the case with the lodging-house landlady, he made off out of town at a slow trot, being somewhat ahead of his time.
It had been a dry, hot summer and the road was dusty. Still and all, it was a pleasant enough journey. Although he had no clear idea of how to go about the job, it seemed to Pastor Faulkner that if the girl from the saloon could only lead up as far as the Comanchero camp, then he would have to trust in the Lord and, as the saying goes, play it by ear. He had one advantage, which he had not so far mentioned to anybody, and that was that he had ridden with the Comancheros as a young man. He knew a good deal about their ways and also spoke a little of the strange slang that they used among themselves. It wasn’t much, but at least it was some sort of edge.
Marie was already waiting for Faulkner about a mile out of town. She was wearing pants instead of a skirt and looked somewhat of a tomboy.
‘I should not have recognized you,’ he told her, ‘had we not met by arrangement. You are a different person in that getup. Cleaner and healthier, I should say. Well, will you lead on?’
‘What will you do if I take you to the base? You are not a man of violence?’
‘I am a man of God. I shall ask them to surrender up those children and their teachers. If they do so peaceably, there will be no call for bloodshed.’
‘Surrender up peaceably? Reverend, do you know what sort of men these are?’
‘Yes. I have no illusions about that. Nevertheless, I shall ask first. If they then wish to set to with me, then we shall see what we see.’
The girl looked at him curiously. ‘You know, you’re not like any preacher I ever set eyes upon. Ain’t you afeared of what might befall you?’
‘Not overmuch. If they let me take those people back with me, then we shall part on what you might describe as amiable terms.’
‘You are one crazed man!’ she shrugged. ‘Well, Preacher, it’s your funeral. I’ll lead you there and then I’m back for town.’
The Reverend Faulkner was staring back along the way he had come. His eyes narrowed as he saw wisps of dust a mile or two off. He turned to the girl. ‘You wouldn’t play me false, would you, child?’
‘No, but happens I have not told you the full story.’
‘That’s like enough to be true. Well, what’s the game?’
‘There are two more men riding with us to Palo Duro. They have some business of their own there and I offered to act as guide for them, too.’
‘They paying you?’
‘Not exactly.’ The minister reached behind him and drew his pistol from the saddle roll, tucking it into his belt where it was handy.
Marie watched with a look of alarm on her face. ‘You ain’t about to shoot them, Reverend, are you?’
‘Not a bit of it. I just want to be ready for any trouble.’ It came as no special surprise to Jonas Faulkner when the men drew near enough to be identified and he saw that it was the two young men that he had buffaloed the night before. They smiled cheerfully when they reached the minister and saloon girl.
‘Hidy!’ said the more pleasant-looking of the two boys to Faulkner. The preacher responded by plucking the revolver from his belt, cocking it and drawing down on them.
‘Shit, Reverend, there’s no call for that!’
‘Suppose you boys tell me the play?’
‘Nothing, sir. Marie here says that you want to find those girls being held up at Palo Duro. We have some business up that way ourselves and so we thought we’d throw in with you. Old gentleman like you, you might be glad of a little protection.’
Faulkner stared at them for a moment or two and then put the pistol back in his belt. ‘You boys on the scout?’
‘I couldn’t say no and I couldn’t say yes, either. It is by way of being a long story.’
‘I’ll be bound it is,’ said Faulkner. ‘Well, I seemingly have little choice in the matter. Let’s ride on.’
The two boys tried to engage the preacher in light conversation about where he lived and how he came to be going to Palo Duro and so on, but finding that he was not disposed to chat idly they fell to talking between themselves and sometimes drawing the girl into their chatter. They seemed pleasant enough young fellows, but it was plain as a pikestaff to Faulkner that they were up to some sort of mischief. He could not exactly figure out what it might be, but at a guess he would have said that it was something in the thieving, rather than murdering, line.
The ill-assorted party rode on until the early afternoon, when Marie called a halt. They had ridden south for a space and then turned east onto a barely defined dust track. It was arid, dry country; not precisely desert, but certainly not fertile or arable land, either. If this little adventure lasted more than a couple of days, then they would be going hungry, thought Faulkner. Living off the land did not look to be a practical proposition and the chances of coming across a boarding house or saloon to supply their needs out here in the wilderness were slender. Mind, presumably the Kiowa and Comanche managed to find enough to eat and drink out here.
‘Listen, now,’ said Marie, ‘we have to stop here until nightfall. We must set up camp out of sight. This track is used by people regular, and we have been lucky not to have come across anybody yet. We must not push our chances.’
‘What happens when it gets dark?’ asked Faulkner.
‘We enter the canyon,’ said Marie. ‘You can see ahead where Palo Duro begins. From the start of it, it is maybe eight or ten miles to the place where those children are being kept.’
The minister turned round in his saddle to address the two young men. ‘Either of you boys been in Palo Duro before?’
‘No, Reverend, Marie has not yet led any of us there.’
‘Come on,’ said the girl, ‘if we stay here much longer, somebody will come by and see us.’ She set off at a canter towards a formation of rocks half a mile or so from the track. The three men followed on.
The worn, reddish rocks, some of which were the size of small houses, provided a good place to make a temporary camp while they waited for it to get dark. The four of them pooled their food and made a fairly decent picnic meal. The only thing lacking was a pot of coffee to finish with, but it didn’t rightly seem like the smart dodge to start up a fire so close to the trail into Palo Duro. The two younger men satisfied themselves with rolling cigarettes and then leaning back and relaxing.
After they had all been reclining so for ten minutes or thereabouts, one of the boys spoke to Faulkner. ‘Say, Preacher, how come you are so ready to use a pistol when the going gets rough? Is it true what Marie here tells us, that you shot that Comanchero who was putting the bite on her?’
Pastor Faulkner stared gloomily into the clear blue sky. ‘It’s true enough. You boys could do a sight worse than take a warning from my life. I know where carrying on the way you two are leads a man. You are decent enough rogues today, but the path leads downwards and who knows where it will take you? Ten years from now you may be given over to all sorts of beastliness.’
‘Well,’ said one of the men, ‘I reckon you might know more about that than us. Why not tell us about your own life? How comes it that a man like you, who I would say knows a thing or two himself about the world, ended up in the preaching line of work?’
Faulkner brooded for a moment or two and then replied, ‘You speak truly. Mayhap it might do you fellows some good to hear how the trail you are now on might lead you to worse things than you could ever dream of. I shall tell you how it came that I am now a man of God, and you shall judge for your own selves if or not you should turn aside from the lives you are living.’ He thought for a moment and then began to talk of his early life. The other three listened, captivated by the strange tale he told them.
I am enjoying this series. It is a very well told story.
I was reading a book recently and gave up after 100 pages. The book introduced so many characters and place names. None of them were very memorable. It was difficult to follow let alone enjoy. Not at all like this one.