Lord Apache

Manuel Peralta was a talkative man with a fierce brushy mustache. 'I hear of you,' he said, shaking hands with Jack. 'I hear a lot about you, Senor Drumm! You fight the Apaches on the Agua Fria, eh?'

'Yes,' Jack admitted. 'We try to prevail against them.'

Peralta spat through a gap between his teeth. A mouse scurried away from a torn sack of meal.

'I have my own place, once, down on the Santa Cruz, near Cojeta—raise melons and grapes and vegetables to sell in Tucson. But the damned Apaches drive me out!' The miller wiped his dusty face with a sleeve. 'Kill my wife and two ninos! That's why I come to here, to get away from the Apaches.' He gestured toward the kitchen, a lean-to huddling against the mill. 'I got me a new wife now, a young one, and more ninos. But I miss Conception and the two babies.'

Jack remembered the string of beads around an Apache raider's neck that first night on the Agua Fria. Maybe the rosary had belonged to Conception Peralta. The miller was helping him load the bags of meal when a woman passed, trudging down the lane with a sack over one shoulder. In the falling snow Jack caught only a brief glimpse, but recollection stirred; the stout figure, the measured stride, the purposeful manner.

'Mrs. Glore!' he called.

For a moment the figure broke stride.

'Wait!' Dropping the meal, he ran after her. 'Wait a minute!'

The cloaked figure started to run, suddenly disappeared. Jack paused, staring into the rabbit warren of jacales, lean-tos, tumbledown adobes where the figure had vanished. Somewhere a concertina played, a woman laughed. Light from a lamp in a window shone into the snow-dusted alleyway. 'Dispenseme, senor,' a small boy carrying a basket of fresh tortillas murmured, and squeezed by him.

Beulah Glore? Or was it only a trick of his imagination? Maybe it was just that he longed to see Phoebe Larkin once more. But the two ladies were probably long gone from the town of Prescott.

'Ladies?' Peralta tugged at his mustache. 'Two ladies? Gringo ladies?' He pondered the question. 'Seem to me—'

'A Mrs. Beulah Glore,' Jack said, 'and a younger lady—Miss Phoebe Larkin.' He waited. 'With red hair,' he added.

Peralta seemed undecided. Finally he said, 'You don't mean them no harm?'

'Good Lord, no!' Jack said. 'I'm a friend!'

'Because,' Peralta said, 'there is a man looking for them, too, I hear. A detective.'

'Meech!' Jack blurted.

'I don't know his name. I don't know their name, either. It is none of my business.' The miller shrugged. 'You understand, senor, people come to Mex Town to hide, sometimes, when the law is after them. But it is not good for a Mexican to stick his nose into things. We give them a bed, maybe frijoles and a cup of coffee —you understand, it is not any of our business. They pay us, then they go away. That is all there is to it!'

'Yes, yes!' Jack said, impatient. 'That's all very true, I'm sure! But where can I find these two ladies?'

The snow was falling more heavily now; a church bell rang. It was six o'clock. A dog shambled up to Peralta, and he kicked at it. Whimpering, it loped away on three legs.

'Go down to the church,' the miller said. 'Turn left and walk to the end of the lane. Under the hill there is a little house with a stone chimney, and a cow and a burro behind a fence. The padre lives there—Father Garces. Maybe he can tell you something.'

Leaving the wagon and old Bonyparts, Jack hurried toward the corner. In his haste he hardly saw the figure standing in the deep embrasure of the church doorway.

'Well!' The man caught him by the arm. His flat-brimmed hat was crowned with a peak of snow; the stuff lay heavy on the dark cloth of his coat. His breath merged in frosty puffs. 'It's a small world!'

Jack swallowed hard, and could only stare.

Alonzo Meech nodded. 'Bonus snowshoes! That's Spanish for 'ain't it a hell of a night out?' What are you doing in Prescott, Mr. Drumm?'

Chapter Eight

Seeing no other way out of the predicament, Jack Drumm paid for beans, tortillas, and a bottle of fiery aguardiente brandy at a tiny cantina.

'It's mighty nice of you,' Meech acknowledged. 'I'm about out of cash, and the home office is getting real fussy about sending me expense money. I been out here a long time now without nothing to show for it. And the Buckner family is getting mad, I guess, because I ain't clapped the cuffs on those two she-devils yet!' Draining a tin cup of brandy, he tapped Jack on the arm. 'You know what? People are helping them two! Everyone seems in cahoots with 'em! Take now, for instance. I was sure I'd run 'em down to Mex Town here, but I lost the danged trail again! When a feller don't speak the Spanish lingo, and these miserable little shacks all piled together the way they are, it don't make my job no easier!'

'Yes,' Jack agreed, 'a detective's job is difficult, I should imagine.' A thought began to form in his mind. 'Well, I think I'll take a room at the Imperial tonight and drive back to the ranch in the morning. I'm not anxious to go down that grade in a snowstorm.'

Seeming not to hear, Alonzo Meech reached for another hot chile and sucked reflectively on it. Jack had tried one, spitting it out when it seemed to be incinerating his tongue, but the detective seemed to relish them.

'I ain't especially smart,' Meech admitted. 'Oh, I read about all these great detectives—the Bow Street Runners in London—that fellow—what was his name? Oh, yes—Javert, in Mr. Hugo's book, which I can't pronounce—'

'Les Miserables.'

'Yes, that's it! Anyway, I'm not smart and deducting all the time, the way those fellers did. But what I got on my side is patience. Even the smartest crinim—crinim—'

'Criminal?'

'I don't usual drink on the job, but it's a cold night.' Meech poured himself another brandy. 'Anyway, even the smartest of 'em will slip up sooner or later, and that's when old Meech is on hand with the cuffs!'

Remembering the detective's weakness, Jack crooked a finger at the Mexican woman who ran the cantina and asked for another bottle of aguardiente. He poured Meech and himself a cupful, only sipping at his.

'Well,' he said again, 'I've got to be going. The Legislature is in session. I'll probably have a hard time getting a room.'

Meech drank half the brandy and set the cup down so hard it sloshed on the table. 'It don't make no difference,' he said loudly, 'whether Pinkerton's pays me or not! It's a matter of pride, see? Professional pride! I'm getting up in years—fifty-six next July—and I'll not have my record spoiled now!'

When Jack slipped away Meech was pouring himself another drink, seeming not to hear the Latin laughter, the quarreling from a corner where a monte game was going on. Jack was not even sure Meech noticed his own departure.

The snow was falling faster. There was no wind, only the steady downfall that muffled sound, cast iridescent rings around the lamplight from an occasional window. Peralta had locked the mill and gone to supper. Bonyparts stood in the traces, broad back mounded with snow; he snuffled impatiently and tossed his head.

'Good mule,' Jack muttered, and gave him a nosebag of oats. Go down to the church, the miller said. Under the hill is a little house with a cow and a burro behind a fence. The padre—Father Garces—

Hesitantly he knocked at the door. It was more substantial than the rest of the house—heavy oak planks, an iron ring set in the middle.

There was no answer. The burro looked at him with disinterest. Shaking its coat to throw off the snow, it ambled into the brush-topped ramada to join the cow.

He knocked again, watching over his shoulder for Meech. A man with that kind of persistence had to be taken