A Tale of Two Storms

A TALE OF TWO STORMS

Luke Cottrell leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped round the back of his neck. He was a big man but the man who had just come in off the street was bigger. A cold presence met an even colder one.

“Can I help you?”

“Heard you were looking for bounty hunters.”

“Big demand now the War’s over”

“Mopping up time”

Cottrell looked at the fellow and gave him a slow nod.

“Yeah. You got a name”

“You can call me Hendriksen”

“All I need it for. You a Dutchie”.

“No I kill Dutchies before breakfast.”

Cottrell did not respond.

“Came from Denmark but I been here long enough.”

“What you done?”

“Fought my way through Kansas. Spilt the blood of Ruffians and slavers. Lecompton types.”

Cottrell nodded.

“Good. We kinda got rid of them down in Texas too but they’re causing trouble across the border.”

“Mexico. Does that matter?

“Do you want a job or don’t you? Thing is our government’s got a tie-in with Juarez. Part of that Monroe Doctrine. And all sorts of Confederate bandits are helping the French. Ben Thompson, John Thrailkill. And worse than that Daniel Madison who’s suppling guns to Maximilian. I want you to kill Madison.”

“How much?”

Cottrell reached into his desk. His badge shone. Hendricksen smiled at the thought of some Kansas Jayhawk, just like he was, calling himself the law down here in South Texas. Cottrell’s hand returned clasping a paper.

“Non-negotiable” He handed it to Hendricksen.

The soi-disant Dane glanced through it.

“You need the body?!”

“Sure. Anybody can claim a death. Anyone can kill and bring a corpse home with them. I know what that piece of shit looks like.”

**************************

Hendrikson entered the cantina as the sun fell down the sky. Sunbeams struggling through net curtains caught motes of dust. Hendrikson sat down at a table and stretched his legs. A man appeared, probably Mexican.

“Señor”

“You got food?”

“I got eggs”

“Ain’t you got meat?”

I got quail”

“Two quail. Por favor”

“I only got one.”

A quail is a mighty small bird and Hendriksen made short work of it.

“You know a fella called Daniel Madison?”

The man’s voice stayed silent but his face said yes.

“I’m not looking for trouble”

Hendriksen looked around the cantina.

“Don’t see any folk around here liable to do that”

“I mind my own business”

Hendriksen ignored that and started fingering his gun, a gleaming Colt 44.

“Except me.”

“Go down to Matamoros. Ask around”.

“Big place Matamoros.”

The waterfront. Look for a pretty girl with dark curls”

“That’s Daniel Madison?”

“No that’s his daughter.”

******************************

Tea-chests and beggars lined the wharf ways. A smart young woman came out of a milliner’s still trying to position her new hat on her dark curls. The hat was bigger than her face.

“Miss Madison?”

She ignored him but long-shots sometimes pay off. Instead he tried a series of waterfront bars throwing down a quick aguardiente in each to humor the barkeeps. Until at last he sat in one where there were frond curtains to one side and voices getting louder. A young woman with dark curls and a florid older man emerged.

“Now the blockade’s over I’ll say farewell, Mr Manchester. Good doing business with ya”

The Brit seemed nervous and soon left the premises but the young woman lingered. Hendriksen watched her.”

“Miss Madison?”

She turned and gave him a long stare. Another face that said yes.

“You want a drink?”

For answer she snapped her fingers and the barkeep poured two glasses. She sat down next to him.

“You looking for gunrunners?” he said quietly.

She laughed.

“You’re a fast one, boy”

He wouldn’t usually accept such an appellation but she came with her own kind of charm.

“What’s your name”

“Thorssen”

“Dutchie?”

“Swede”

“That little war north of the river could keep a girl in fancy frocks. But now there’s Frenchies here want their carbines. But what would a girl like me know about such things.”

“You can trust me”

“I can trust nobody, Mr Thorssen. But you come over for dinner and I’ll weigh you up.”

They finished their drink and left the bar. They were immediately surrounded by a rank looking mob of riders. There were Mexicans, white Texans, Lipans and Nigra fellows. He was a big man but he couldn’t handle hordes like them. She broke the silence and addressed the seeming leader while looking at Thorssen.

“He doesn’t look worth the bother of slitting open and dumping in the river, Esteban”

She turned to the Swedish Dane.

“Git on your horse, fella. We’re riding out.”

********************

They journeyed across dark fields through the shadows of sleeping cattle. The fields were surprisingly damp and he felt he could almost smell the recent rain. At last they reached an old hacienda house, wormy and broken in its outer fencing. There were lit torch-brands at an angle to the inner walls and a dry fountain with shrivelled flowers. The men, some of whom had already taken their leave on the journey, largely disappeared into the darkness and Ruby, as Miss Madison had been called by Esteban, took him into the house. He was given a room to leave his bag in and taken to a big kitchen where an older man sat at a table. Ruby excused herself without effecting an introduction.

So Thornssen Hendricksen was left alone with Daniel Madison, the man he was contracted to kill. How easy, how sublimely easy. Of course there were many rough retainers within earshot. Nevertheless. His thoughts were disrupted by his companion.

“Forgive Miss Madison’s manners. I’m Jacob Tasker.”

The Dane gave a chuckle.

“I had assumed you were her father.”

“Ah no. That is some tale I fear.”

“He is.. not here?” he thought was perhaps the way to proceed initially.

“Oh he’s here. Most certainly. Come, I’ll show you.

But the ever-keen ears of the Swede had heard something.

“In a minute. Excuse me.”

He quickly took his boots off and lolloped out of the room effortlessly combining speed with silence. In the room provided for him he found Ruby Madison rifling through his bag.

“You sure do need teaching some manners and there’s a place over my knee just itching to provide the locus”

“So you’re a bounty hunter” she laughed shaking the contract at him, “Come to kill my father”

She was really laughing now.

“Forgive me but I can’t see anything in our current conversation that could cause you such mirth”

“Let me tell you something. And then let me show you something else.”

“All right” he said, though suspicion rang out in his voice.

“You said yourself the ground was very damp when we rode here. We had a dreadful storm- wind and rain, lightning and thunder. Now come with me”

She took him towards the back of the place, into some sort of scullery full of damp, stained sinks and old pots. But the first thing he noticed was a huge and very new-looking coffin. The lid was up so he could not see who if anybody was in it. She beckoned him to walk around it. There was an older man lain inside surrounded by pieces of ice

“My foolish father was outside wrestling with the metal clasp on a barrel when the lightning struck him full on. We tried to revive him”

She was choking on her voice. He felt a sudden sympathy for her, felt he wanted to hold her. Life makes us what we are; feelings get buried

“I guess there’s nothing I can do except get my wretched hide out of here”

She looked at him. Empathy became a two-way street.

“I don’t reckon I’m any better a human being than you” she said “You got a lot of money riding on that man, my father”

“I did have”

“I’ll split it with you”

“What!”

“We’ll take the coffin to Cottrell- and collect”

“Your father?”

“There’s nothing about Cottrell keeping the body is there. We’ll give him a good Christian burial which on no account does he deserve later”.

He stared at her.

“Daniel would have done the same had it been me in that coffin”

“All right.”

“We have a deal?”

“We have a deal, Miss Madison”

***********************

They set off back to Texas. There was Ruby and the Swane/Dede and Esteban and two more hombres. There’s just no one person she trusts he thought. The coffin slowed them down so they spent a night in the open listening to the wild animals and perhaps the cries of the recent dead. He caught some sleep around four in the morning but was woken by gunfire. Years of practice had honed his reactions and he was on his feet in an instant. One of the caballeros ran toward him wild of eye and collapsed dead at his feet. Ruby followed him in a more stately fashion holding a big and smoking gun

“Some folks get greedy she said”

The six had become four and they were nearing the border. And the weather was closing in. Huge black clouds edged with blue moved sulkily across the sky. They hung there like a presentiment. Then the darkness was scored with lightning, a vast and cosmic notation. Then came the thunder. Then came the rain. And the lightning and the thunder and the rain made common play upon the earth and all that walked or crawled thereon.

On the Mexican side of the River Ruby and Esteban took what shelter they could. Henrik-Thorssen rode across and found Cottrell.

“He’ll be with you right soon”

Cottrell nodded. He went back out into the drenched street. Somehow Ruby and Esteban had gotten the coffin into Texas. The afternoon had turned black as night. The storm was overhead. Lightning hit them full on. The coffin shook in the cart. Daniel Madison staggered to his feet.

“Oh Lord you have given life back to a wretched sinner” he roared.

“After taking it away” said Ruby “Seems like He can’t quite make his mind up”.

And Ruby laughed. Oh how the girl laughed that time. Thor-Hendrikson laughed briefly too After all, that what he had planned all along, to kill a living man. But a bounty hunter chooses his time and place and neither was on his side.

“Who’s that fellow”, rasped Madison

“I’ve been interviewing him for the post of junior gunrunner” answered Ruby.

“What’s your name, fella” asked Madison

“Olafson”

“You some kind of Dutchie?”

“No” said the man “Norwegian”