The Sonora Noose

1

DEPUTY MARSHAL MASON BARKER WINCED IN PAIN, twisted from side to side without finding any relief, then ran his hand over the spot on his lower back causing him the distress. Riding for the last nine hours after serving process for Judge Terrence Donawell over in El Paso had taken its toll on his body. He was only thirty-eight years old but felt a hundred after such a long junket. Barker stretched in the stirrups to his full five-foot-eight height and then patted his bulging belly. His wife, Ruth, fed him too damn well the times he managed to sit down at the table with her. That gut dangling over his gun belt might be part of the problem with his back, but he wasn’t inclined to give up that second helping of Ruth’s peach cobbler whenever it came his way. It was too good, especially after living on cans of tomatoes and boiled beans on the trail.

Still, he had to do something about the pain that lanced up and down his spine.

He had been thrown from a captured horse while serving as a scout for Colonel Carson during the Navajo War. Barker couldn’t even claim he had come by his injury performing some heroic deed. It had been a danged fool thing to try to ride an Indian pony unaccustomed to a saddle, but no one else had stayed on it longer than a few seconds. He had been younger and cockier then, full of piss and vinegar, and up to any challenge. There had been enemies to stop and worlds to conquer and he had done his best, but he still wished he hadn’t taken that header off the feisty horse to land on a mighty hard rock at the mouth of Cañon de Chelly.

Good thing that sunfishin’ son of a gun didn’t toss me a few feet farther, Barker said to himself as he stretched more of the kinks away, presenting his back to the afternoon sun for some heated comfort. He had missed a huge clump of prickly pear cactus that would have given him woe enough so that he’d still be picking broken spines out of his leathery hide twenty years later.

And his back would still have been bent at a crazy angle.

He drew rein outside the corral behind the town marshal’s office, then dismounted gingerly. Barker moved slowly, putting down his weight a little at a time, as if walking on eggshells instead of dusty New Mexico ground, but the back pain refused to abate. He knew what he had to do as he heaved a sigh and headed down Mesilla’s main street toward his favorite watering hole. There were fancier saloons in town than the hole-in-the-wall Plugged Nickel Saloon and Gambling Euphorium, but he appreciated the misspelling of the name as well as the pun. He had pointed this out to Gus Phillips, the gin mill’s owner, but Gus hadn’t seen anything wrong, even after Barker explained the difference between an emporium and euphoria.

More out of habit than any real need, before going inside he wiped the dust off his deputy’s badge hammered out of a Mexican silver peso. Although he was a federal deputy and spent more time tracking down outlaws throughout the rest of New Mexico Territory than he did bellying up to the bar at the Plugged Nickel, the folks here knew him well enough. He thought of Mesilla as his town, his home, the place he returned to after long weeks patrolling the rest of his district. It was as close to a home as he had been able to give Ruth and his son over the long years of being constantly on the move, and for the welcome the folks in Mesilla had given he was grateful.

Barker winced as he stood in the doorway, as much from back pain as from the cacophony roiling from inside. Gus had hired a new piano player, who was even worse than the former one, if that was possible. It had been more than two weeks since Barker had been in town, and in the life of a saloon like this one, that amounted to an eternity. He paused and looked around, taking in the changes. Besides the weasely-looking piano player with his thinning, greased-back sandy hair and long fingers that played bonelessly, there was a new nude hanging behind the twenty-foot-long polished oak bar. It was about time that the old painting be replaced, Barker decided. The voluptuous red-haired woman in the old masterpiece had begun peeling in unseemly places, and the paint had faded so much from smoke there was almost no contrast left between acres of bare flesh and background. Worse, the yellowing had made the woman look Chinese, a curious contrast with her flowing red hair. The new painting was a real work of art.

She’s a real beauty, ain’t she, Marshal? asked Gus, coming down the bar, his rag working feverishly to pick up beer spills and return the precious gleam to the wood. The piano man over there, he painted her. Watched him do it in less than a day. The man’s a genius.

Glad he’s got other talents to fall back on, Barker said dryly as the piano player butchered Stephen Foster’s Nelly Was a Lady.

A man of many talents, yes, sir, Gus said with some admiration. Don’t know his real worth, neither. Got him singin’ ’n playin’ for only a dollar a day.

A steal, Barker said, not indicating whom he considered was being robbed. I need a shot, he said.

Gus hesitated.

Trade whiskey’s fine, Barker said, knowing the barkeep’s reluctance came from not knowing if he was going to get paid. Barker’s salary, even as a federal deputy marshal, was sporadic at best. He had heard that Marshal Dakes over in Arizona had never collected a dime of his salary and didn’t even know for certain what he was supposed to be paid. Barker was ahead of him in that respect, getting forty dollars a month, whenever the federal marshal’s office thought to send it. Mostly he made his money serving process for judges in El Paso, Texas, and several towns throughout southern New Mexico. Of the lot, he was glad he had settled in Mesilla. It had the feel of a real town to him, unlike Tularosa and other supposedly inhabited places sprouting up like vile weeds around the Chupadera to the north.

He fished out a silver dollar and let it ring sonorously on the bar. Gus performed a sleight of hand and the coin vanished, replaced as if by magic with a brimming shot of the powerful antidote for what ailed Barker.

You want to pay off your tab, Marshal? Gus asked. He grinned when Barker nodded once, then he passed over the glass so the marshal could knock back the potent concoction of grain alcohol, with gunpowder added for bite and a few rusty nails tossed in to give the proper color. Barker belched as the whiskey hit his belly, but the heat spread through him and centered on the stubborn pain in his back. In a minute the misery receded, and after a second drink, it was almost gone.

The deputy wanted nothing more than to leave the Plugged Nickel and ride home to his Ruth. He had been on the circuit a tad longer than he had expected this time, but finding the miner hidden away in the Organ Mountains and serving him the foreclosure on his property had proven to be a real chore. For a heartbeat Barker had thought the old miner was going to shoot it out, but part of being a federal marshal was convincing men to do what they didn’t want to do without resorting to using the six-shooter hanging at your side.

But he knew from the sounds rising behind him in the saloon that going home was out of the question for now. Barker turned slowly and took in the situation. Facing Manuelito and his entire clan of savage, clever Navajo warriors would have been more appealing at this instant. Mason Barker had seen too much sudden death come from situations like the one brewing to be easy about it. He had never killed a man, but that might change fast right now if he wanted to prevent a real bloodbath.

You cheated me! shouted a sodbuster that Barker struggled to place. The name finally came to him. Sean Leary had put away one too many drinks—or maybe one too few. Another jolt of Gus’s tarantula juice might have caused him to pass out and would have relieved Barker of his duty to keep everyone concerned alive.

Boys, you saw the cards, said the card slick across the table from the farmer, to the others in the poker game. I had two pair—little ladies and deuces. All he had was a pair of kings. Two pair beats one every time, no matter that they’re kings.

Barker saw the wild expression on Leary’s face. It was as much fear as it was anger and confusion, but he doubted the farmer was afraid of the right thing. The gambler must have rattled when he walked, hideout guns and knives never more than a few inches away from his nimble fingers no matter how he turned in his chair or how relaxed he looked. He sounded peaceable enough, but Barker saw the slight twitch under the gambler’s right eye showing the anticipation. It certainly wasn’t fear of a drunk pinto bean farmer.

Two quick steps put the deputy behind the gambler. He rested his hand on the man’s shoulder and bore down hard enough to get his attention. Barker didn’t look at the gambler, but across the table at Leary.

What’s the ruckus, Sean? he asked.

Marshal? Sean Leary blinked as he tried to focus. Marshal! He done stole from me! That was the mortgage money for my farm! He cheated! Leary frantically pulled out a black-powder Remington and waved it around wildly. This was what Barker had feared when he had seen the sodbuster from across the room.

I never— started the gambler, but Barker’s powerful grip tightened, silencing the man. Barker looked around the table and read the facts on the other players’ faces. Leary had joined the wrong game. The gambler didn’t have to cheat to beat a drunk farmer come to town for supplies and to pay his mortgage.

Put that hogleg down, Sean, Barker said gently. You don’t want to go shooting it off in here. The smoke from that ole blunderbuss would choke the lot of us till next Sunday. He tightened his grip and found nerves that caused the gambler’s right arm to go numb, so he couldn’t reach for the derringer poking out from his vest pocket, not inches from the tips of his fingers.

He stole my money. Leary’s anger was disappearing, replaced entirely by fear.

Your wife doesn’t know you were gambling with the mortgage money, does she, Sean? Barker asked gently. He knew he had hit the nail on the head by the way Leary jerked, as if the accusation was a whip lash across the face. Put that damned thing down for a moment. Keep it under the table so you don’t spook Gus’s other patrons, and let me and the gambling man talk about this.

I want my money back, Marshal!

You stay put, Sean, Barker said sternly. And you, outside. He maintained his steely grip on the gambler’s shoulder. If he dug his fingers in harder, he could make the cardsharp’s entire right arm go numb for the rest of the day. Guiding the gambler outside onto the boardwalk, he spun him around.

I didn’t cheat him. I— The gambler never got out another word.

Barker shoved him against the Plugged Nickel’s adobe wall, hard enough to cause a small dust cloud, and caught both the man’s forearms, squeezing tight as he hunted for mechanical devices. Nothing. A quick look assured the lawman that the gambler hadn’t been using cards pulled from his vest or waistband, either, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. From the man’s nimbleness, Barker reckoned he could deal seconds and stack a deck with the best of them. Maybe he had done that. Or maybe the game had been an oddity in Mesilla: honest.

A word of advice, Barker said. Leave Mesilla now.

You don’t want his money back? the gambler asked suspiciously.

From the look of it, you won fair and square. You deserve to make a living, like anyone else, but taking Sean Leary’s money is like stealing a dead man’s boots. There’s no challenge to it. Now, you clear out and I’ll settle matters with him.

Thanks, Marshal.

It’s Deputy Marshal Barker. Mason Barker glared at the grateful gambler, who took his advice, mounted a swayback mule, and headed out of Mesilla fast amid a tiny cloud of gritty brown dust. Barker heaved a sigh of relief. A fight with that vulture would have been bloody. But he still had the other half of the battle to win. He wasn’t sure but that dealing with a man afraid of what he had done and not willing to fess up to his wife was more dangerous than tangling with an armed and agile gambler.

Hell, Barker knew that it was.

He went back in, a smile on his face in spite of the way Sean Leary waved his six-shooter around. The man had gone from blaming the gambler to claiming the others at the green-felt-covered card table had cheated him. Barker recognized two of the men and doubted they would be in cahoots with the gambler. The others were drifters passing through Mesilla on their way to God knew where, but their expressions told him they’d as soon be on the moon as here looking down the immense bore of Leary’s six-shooter. If they’d cheated Leary, they would already be forking the money across to him. Like as not, they had lost to the gambler, too.

Sean, Barker said in a low tone. We got to talk. Let’s step outside.

No! the man said, his knuckle turning white on the trigger. I want my money back, and I ain’t budgin’ till I get it. I was robbed, I tell you. Where’s that worthless hunk of coyote meat?

Don’t go doing anything you’ll regret, Barker said, seeing that Leary wasn’t going to stir from the chair at the card table until he either got his money back or started flinging lead.

My money, Marshal. I got to have it!

This is a bit delicate, Sean, Barker said in a confidential tone. You see, I have the money.

Gimme it!

I can’t, Sean, as much as I’d like to. It’s a matter of pride. That gambler can’t let it be known he’s giving you the money back. It’d ruin his reputation.

But—

He gave it to me because I’m a federal deputy marshal, but I can’t let it look as if he did. So I’ll sit down in his chair, and we’ll play one more hand. I’m no good at cards, so I’ll lose. You take the pot, you get your money back, and you get on back to the missus.

All right, Leary said, frowning as his alcohol-fogged mind worked on what the lawman said. He didn’t relax the grip on his six-gun. Barker watched to be sure the farmer wasn’t going to open fire and worried that the old pistol might go off accidentally. The potential was still there for someone to get hurt mighty bad.

Barker settled down, now on the receiving end of the pistol. He took the cards and shuffled quickly. The other players tried to edge back and leave, but Leary’s threatening six-shooter kept them glued where they were.

All right, ante up, Barker said, scooting a white chip to the center of the table. The other men also anted up. Barker’s eyebrows rose when Leary didn’t make a move to put his chip in. Go on, Sean. Ante up.

You know I can’t, Marshal. He done robbed me of all my money.

This is a problem, Barker said softly. You know I can’t give you back the money. We got to make it look respectable. He paused a moment, then smiled. I’ve got it. Just you and me. We cut the deck. High card wins.

All right, Leary said.

But you have to bet something. What do you have that’s worth anything? Barker pushed his chips into the center of the table.

I ... I don’t have nuthin’.

The gun. Put it into the pot. It ought to be worth about that much. Barker held out the deck for Leary to cut. The drunken farmer was torn between getting his money back and putting down the pistol.

I’m gonna win, ain’t I?

Sure as rain, Barker said, hoping Leary wouldn’t consider how dry it was in the desert this year. Not even the droughty Rio Grande a couple miles to the southeast was flowing as poorly as Leary was thinking.

Leary put his pistol onto the table and cut out a ten of diamonds.

I win, he said, but Barker was quicker. The deputy cut out a queen of spades.

Nope, I win.

Confusion befuddled the sodbuster for a moment, giving the lawman time to scoop up Leary’s six-shooter.

I was supposed to win! Leary cried. He looked around wildly, but without a six-gun to use as a threat, he was powerless. Barker wasted no time shoving the farmer’s six-shooter into his belt, going around the table, grabbing him by the collar, and half-dragging him from the Plugged Nickel.

Barker raged. "Don’t ever, I mean ever, gamble money you can’t afford to lose. If I see you within ten feet of a bottle of whiskey, I’ll clap you in jail so fast your head won’t stop spinning for a month of Sundays!"

But you said—

Get your buckboard. I’m taking you home.

No, you said I’d get my money back.

It’s lost, Sean. You lost it in a fair game.

My gun!

You lost it, too. It’s mine and I’m keeping it. Get in that buckboard of yours. Oh, the hell with it. Barker grabbed Leary by the seat of the pants and his collar and heaved, staggering him down the street to the buckboard. With a heave, he dumped the man into the back. You stay put. I’ll be back with my horse in a minute.

Barker saw he wouldn’t have to chase Sean Leary down. The man was curled up in the buckboard sobbing like a baby.

In disgust, the deputy got his trusty mare and fastened the reins to the rear of the buckboard, then got the rig moving to the Leary farm outside Mesilla. As he rode, Barker saw the fields of beans and fragrant green alfalfa stretching out of sight. This wasn’t the best land in the world, but with irrigation from a well-planned acequia, a hardworking man could make a decent living.

An hour after leaving Mesilla, the sobbing man had finally fallen into a drunken sleep, and Barker pulled up in front of an adobe house needing a fair amount of repair work on it. He figured Leary was more inclined to go into town to drink and gamble than he was to do a proper day’s work here, but that was his wife’s problem.

Afternoon, Mrs. Leary, the deputy called. He drew rein and fastened the leather straps around the brake before jumping to the ground. He touched the brim of his floppy black hat in polite greeting, but the tiny woman knew this was no social call.

What’s wrong, Marshal? she demanded. She wiped flour off her hands as she stepped away from the rounded, head-high, adobe horno she had just shoved a couple loaves into to bake. The Indian oven a couple yards from the main house seemed out of place being used by a woman with such a heavy brogue, but in this desert everything but sidewinders and prickly pear cactus was an interloper.

He cast a quick look into the rear of the buckboard.

He lost our mortgage money, didn’t he? she said, her lips thinning to a razor slash.

Reckon so, ma’am, Barker said. He hesitated. These weren’t rich folks, but neither was he. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from saying a bit more. I’ve got his six-shooter, but I can’t in good faith give it back after Sean waved it around like he did.

I understand, Mrs. Leary said.

That’s why I got to pay you for it. Barker fished in his shirt pocket and found some of the scrip Judge Donawell had paid him. He unfolded a ten-dollar note issued by an El Paso bank. In Mesilla it didn’t mean as much, but the Learys weren’t going to starve. He handed it to the woman.

You’re paying ten dollars for that rusty old thumb-breaker? she asked.

You see that he stays out of the saloons in town, ma’am, Barker said. I told him, ’fore he passed out, that I’d have to lock him up if I ever saw him in any of them again.

Considering how many drinking establishments there are, that’s nigh on half the town being off-limits, Mrs. Leary said in despair. That’s good of you, Marshal Barker. Thank you. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and not a little anger, but it was directed at her husband. Her words of gratitude were sincere.

You look after him and keep him working, Barker said.

I will. The cold steel in the small woman’s words chilled Barker. He was glad she wasn’t his wife. He tipped his hat, mounted his mare, and rode off without so much as a look backward when he heard Sean Leary’s anguished screech as his wife dragged him from the buckboard. Before this day was over, the man would end up wishing he had been thrown into the calaboose.

Mason Barker rode toward home and his family, feeling good that he had avoided bloodshed. Even better, his back hardly twinged at all.

2

MASON BARKER RODE TO THE SMALL BARN AND shook his head when he saw how badly it needed another coat of