Top
Free Shipping On Orders Over $35!
Get Rewarded for Ordering Your Textbooks! Enroll Now
Customer Reviews Read Reviews
Write a Review
What is included with this book?
The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
The Used, Rental and eBook copies of this book are not guaranteed to include any supplemental materials. Typically, only the book itself is included. This is true even if the title states it includes any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.
They had been almost a year down in thatcountry.
John Sears had wanted to cross the Rio Grandeinto old Mexico as soon as Teddy Blue busted himout of the jail in Las Vegas.
"Even Hoodoo Brown wouldn't have the cajonesto come looking for us down there," Johnhad said. But Teddy had made a commitment tohis boss, George Bangs, the director of Pinkerton'sDetective Agency, in agreeing to go meet withColonel Cody, and so that's what they did. Andonce that matter had been taken care of, Teddyrode with John down across the border and foundthe little village of Refugio, where they werepresently.
The first of the letters that arrived was writtenin pencil on butcher's paper.
Ma's dead. She wanted you to know. Shedied right after you were here. MarriedAntrim, then died. I guess he didn't do her nogood like she thought. She said your name in her last hour. I guess that's about all I have tosay. She wanted you to know so I promisedher I'd write and tell you. Hope you get this.Antrim cries big tears. So what?The letter had a dollar's worth of postage andwas mailed originally to Teddy's address inChicago. His mother had forwarded it with theothers and included a note of her own prayingthat he was well.
John was tossing a stick so the little dog wouldchase it and bring it to him. They'd been sitting inthe shade of an adobe when the letters arrived. Oldman named Ortega rode a mule to deliver the mailevery day like clockwork if there was any. Mostdays there wasn't any. They'd been down in Juarezsince before Christmas, had taken their pay fromCody's hunting trip to sustain them an easy life.Had crossed the Rio Grande without getting theirfeet wet and kept riding. Refugio seemed the rightsort of place for men like them who didn't want tobe found.
"What is it, old son?" John said when he caughtthe look on his young partner's face after havingread the letter.
Teddy held the letter a second, then let the windtake it. He and John watched it fly like a drunkenbutterfly until it snagged on the upper branches ofa mimosa tree.
"You want some of this tequila?" John said,nodding toward an olla by his feet.
Teddy reached out for the jar and John handedit to him then took a sip himself when Teddyhanded it back.
They'd raised beards and let their hair growlong and wore serapes and couldn't hardly be toldfrom the natives, with their sun-browned facesand how they spoke the local lingo.
"Bad news?" John said.
"About as bad as it gets."
John passed him back the olla then rolled himselfa shuck and smoked it.
"You want to talk about it?"
"It's the woman I went to see in Silver City,"Teddy said. "Kathleen Bonney."
"Lung fever as I recall. She die?"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry as hell to hear of it."
The little dog worried John with the retrievedstick until John worked it loose from the hound'sjaws and flung it again. He liked watching smartdogs just like he enjoyed watching a good horse ora beautiful woman or clean white clouds in a glassblue sky.
John looked at the other letters Teddy hadn'tyet opened, weighted by a rock. He didn't sayanything. The sky was hot-metal white that timeof day—the siesta hour. The air buzzed with flies.A community well stood just up the street fromwhere the two men sat. They'd spent the last hour sitting in the shade and watching the comings andgoings of the locals to that well: women mostly,drawing up buckets of water and filling clay jugs.
"I've been thinking of going north again,"Teddy said.
"Because of her?"
"It's too late for me to do anything for her. I wasthinking about going north before today."
"Where north?"
A boy came down the dusty street leading aburro loaded down with ocotillo sticks. The boylooked at them, at the olla they passed betweenthem, his face dark as saddle leather, hair black ascrow feathers. His name was Chico somethingand he worked for the priest doing odd jobs. Somesaid he was really the priest's own child, that themother had died during birth -- God's retributionfor the padre's sins. Who was to say what wastrue, what wasn't?
John said, "That kid reminds me of me when Iwas his age -- dirt poor and aimless."
"You made any plans yet?" Teddy asked.
"Me? Just to stay alive and out of jail, I reckonis all."
"You think you'll ever get over it, what happenedin Las Vegas?"
John thought about the shooting, the way he'dcome home to find his woman with the other man.John told himself a thousand times if he hadn'tbeen drinking he wouldn't have pulled his pistoland let blind anger wash away all his reason and the woman would not be dead. He never meantfor it to come out bad. The worst part was theman had lived. The man became a witness againsthim in the trial. He still remembered how that fel-lowsmirked a little when he told his side of thestory.
"No," John said. "I never will get over somethinglike that, I don't reckon."
The days had been as lazy as the Rio Grande itself.They'd subsisted on frijoles and fry bread, alittle pork now and then, sometimes wild turkeysthey'd shoot out in the chaparral ...
Law for Hire: Saving Masterson. Copyright © by Bill Brooks. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
Excerpted from Law for Hire: Saving Masterson by Bill Brooks
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
Need Help? Copyright © 1999-2024