Blaze! The Christmas Journey Read online

  Business has been mighty slow. I'm an educated woman, believe it or not, and I read what newspapers I can get my hands on. The thieves in Washington are calling it a recession but whatever it is, lately I've been lucky to have a broken down whiskey drummer or salesman of one sort or another renting room and board for a few nights here and there. Or folks travelin' and needing a place to rest up a couple days.

  And yes, there have been hardcases passin' through like those two who robbed the bank. Those boys looked on the rough side at first glance but they paid in silver and I was in no position to turn away their business.

  Skid and Lester?

  They told me they were brothers. You could see that in their faces. The big one, Les, he runs their show. Skid, he always seemed kind of squirrelly, like you had to keep your eye on him or he might snag him some silverware when I wasn't looking. But like I said, I needed the business. They told me their names were Robert and Colby Dewayne. Lester said his brother needed his rest on doctors' orders.

  Nate, that's my boy, he took a liking to those fellas right off. Nate's an impressionable child. Sixteen, and spends most of his time, when he's not doing his chores, with his nose buried in one of those useless dime novels about Kit Carson or Wild Bill or some such nonsense. When he got a look at those two, Les and Skid, why, he started following 'em around like a puppy because when first he took the reins of their horses to lead them back to the stable, the big one, Lester, tossed Nate a gold coin like he was a big shot. That impressed my boy.

  I didn't like that but I didn't get suspicious until next morning. The big one slipped me more money that I'd ever seen at one time. Did it like it was peanuts. He said Skid needed lots of privacy. I saw right off that was a lie. But I took the money. Les said he didn't want anyone, especially the sheriff, to know that they were staying in my boarding house. They stayed cooped up in their room during the daylight hours and only stretched their legs outside after dark.

  They boarded with us four days. It didn't seem to bother them that Nate shadowed them the whole time, wide-eyed and curious. I saw it happening. I spoke to Nate in private about it. He pretended to understand when I told him they were dangerous badmen who meant no good to anyone. But seems like to Nate, they were heroes.

  I was dusting one day when I heard the brothers whispering to each other about being on the lam from the law.

  That's when I knew everything had changed in just the four short days with them around. My own son changed right before my eyes, trying to model himself after Les right down to the way he tried to swagger. I knew things had changed because once I knew for a fact that they were outlaws, I realized that I couldn't trust Nate with what I knew. Nate was an innocent boy enamored by those wolves. They might have killed both of us if Nate let on that I knew the truth. So I kept my mouth shut.

  They were gone the next morning. I was grateful for that. But their leaving brought a curse too. They had taken Nate with them! They perhaps thought it was a joke. In the middle of the night the three of them had stole off together.

  Naturally I was worried sick but who could I tell? If I made up some false story to cover Nate's disappearance, Sheriff Minton would send men out to search for him and they might be gunned down by the Waddells because of my not telling the truth. On the other hand, I couldn't admit that I had shielded two wanted men in my home.

  What with having to take over Nate's chores around the place in addition to my own and worrying, I nearly lost my mind. But I never turned to drink, not once. I'm a Bible-quotin' woman. I get my strength from the good Lord above. Nate's a good son. Perhaps I protected him too much since his pa died. A son needs a father to teach him things. Nate has been close to no one but me since the day he was born.

  Two days ago, the Waddells rode in again.

  Again, after dark.

  I had no boarders. There was only me. I keep Clarence's old .44s in a dresser in the bedroom, and I wished I'd had them when the two riders drew close enough for me to recognize them.

  Les proceeded to relate, in his coarse and sneering manner, a horrifying chain of events.

  My son had indeed fallen in with these thieves. He rode with them when they robbed the bank in Lordsburg. A young mother and her baby girl were killed in a crossfire. The Waddell brothers escaped.

  Nate was wounded and captured.

  They're fixing to hang my boy.

  Les said if I got drunk and caused a ruckus today, it would work as a decoy and make it easier for him and Skid to make their getaway after sticking up the bank. There'd be so much confusion, folks wouldn't know what to do. We'd meet up outside of town. For helping them, they'd take me to Lordsburg and we'd find a way to free my son out of jail before they took him to the hanging tree.

  I raised Nate to be a good boy. At first I couldn't believe what Les said but it did make sense after I thought about it, given the way Nate kept bird-dogging 'em while they with us. I tried to get word on Nate but the Indians have been cutting the telegraph lines and, well...I cannot find the words to express how crazy desperate I felt.

  I don't know what happened to me after I started drinking that whiskey. It unleashed the Devil in me, hand to my Heavenly Father. I saw Santa Claus bringing happiness to those children. What a fool I was! I went crazy from the whiskey. I started thinking about when Nate was a sweet, innocent little boy like those kids, and the wonderful Christmases we used to have when his pa was alive. And how it had all come to such a stinking rotten end. The more I drank, the blind crazier I got.

  That is my story.

  It's Christmastime. They're fixing to walk my only child up to the gallows for a terrible crime and there's nothing I can do about it. I cannot even look into my baby's eyes one last time and tell him I love him and say goodbye

  I am truly sorry for what I have done.

  I hope God, and everyone else, will forgive me—especially Mr. and Mrs. Blaze.

  Chapter 7

  Sheriff Minton said, "So, J.D., you're not willing to press charges against Mrs. Mitchell?"

  Kate said, "If he does, he's in mighty hot water with me."

  J.D. did not need to evaluate this statement. He knew Kate well enough to know she meant it. He knew when to see the light.

  He said, "Reckon no harm was done except maybe scaring the kids some. What she did didn't help the Waddells any. I was on their trail until they got lucky and ol' Thunder got nervous. No, we won't press charges."

  J.D. had always thought his wife had an interesting face. Lovely features. But Kate's beauty could transform itself depending on her mood. There was her hard-eyed and set jaw grimace when they were about to close in on a bounty or a threat was coming their way. Or it was a beauty that could animate with a range of emotions from joy to compassion to intense interest. Right now, Kate's smile dimpled in a loveliness that J.D. wouldn't mind taking in both hands and planting a kiss on. She flashed him what he could only think of as a Mona Lisa smile.

  She said, "You're a good man, J.D."

  Mrs. Mitchell sat in one of the office chairs, nursing yet another cup of coffee. Kate had helped the woman tidy herself up. The disheveled drunk who had approached J.D. not long ago now sat, refreshed in appearance if not spirit. She set aside the empty cup. She looked completely sober.

  She said, "My son Nathaniel, he's a good young man." She spoke as if to the callused hands folded in her lap. A torrent of seething emotion within her surfaced. The floodgates of sorrow burst wide. "Those things they said my Nate did, murdering a woman and her baby...that just can't be true."

  Kate nodded. "Bullets flying everywhere during a shootout, who's to say whose bullets struck those poor souls in a crossfire?"

  Sheriff Minton considered and nodded, graying the air with a cloud of smoke from his pipe.

  "That's true enough, Kate. But according to what those Waddell boys told Mrs. Mitchell, her son is in custody and has been convicted."

  Kate sneered. "The Waddells are bank robbing liars. They bamboozled this woman after riding
off with her son. No one here knows the true story."

  Mrs. Mitchell's eyes remained downcast. "Nathaniel, languishing in a cold cell. Waiting for the noose to be slipped around his neck..."

  No tears. The words drenched in despair.

  Kate cleared her throat.

  She said, "J.D., you and I are going to accompany Mrs. Mitchell to Lordsburg so she can see her son."

  J.D. blinked and cocked his head as if he hadn't heard right.

  "But Kate honey, that's way over New Mexico way, a long ways from here. There's Indians, there's outlaws, there's—"

  "There's stagecoaches and trains. J.D., I said—"

  J.D. scratched the back of his neck. He looked at his boots.

  "I heard what you said."

  "This woman is going to Lordsburg to see her son before he's...she's going to Lordsburg and maybe we can straighten things out. We'll look into it for her."

  Mrs. Mitchell raised forlorn eyes.

  "I don't see how. You speak of stagecoach and train...that takes money. I have no money."

  J.D. said, "Well, there you go. She has no money—"

  Kate ignored him.

  "Mrs. Mitchell, you leave that to us. We'll get you to Lordsburg." She send J.D. a long, penetrating glance. "Won't we, J.D.?"

  J.D. said, "Uh, yeah. Looks that way."

  "You'd pay my way?" said Mrs. Mitchell. "You'll help me to see my son?"

  Kate nodded. "We will. And right now we're burning daylight. Alma, you pack what things you can for traveling. J.D., let's you and me make arrangements for our horses and find out what time the next stage leaves town."

  * * *

  They had a few of hours before the next stage was scheduled to leave.

  Alma Mitchell returned to her house, presently vacant of boarders, expressing no qualms about this quick departure. She carried herself with a sense of purpose, and promised to meet up with them at the time of departure.

  Kate and J.D. returned to their hotel room.

  J.D. spent time oiling and reloading his pistols. He completed this task just as Kate stashed herself between the bed sheets, having attended to her freshening up in an adjoining room furnished with towels, basin and pitchers of watcher. She was nude, and exuded a fresh, soapy scent. J.D. set aside his holstered six-guns. His brow was lined in thought.

  "Hon, are you sure it's a good idea, spending Christmas racing the clock to get that poor woman to Lordsburg? Most likely we'll show up just in time to watch the hangman trip the gallows trapdoor."

  Kate propped herself up with pillows against the headboard, the sheets drawn up under her chin.

  "Sweetie, do I ask you for much?"

  He considered this. He grinned.

  "Not near as much as most of your breed I've known, I'll say that for you."

  She remained dead serious. "And do I take good care of you?"

  "Aw, y'know you do, Kate. You're a good wife."

  "So be a good husband and grant me this one little wish for Christmas."

  "Little? Risking our hides! Taking on gunmen and Apaches, not to mention the weather? We've had a mild December so far but you know how changeable it can get this time of year. We should spend Christmas curled up in a warm bed with a bottle of good sipping whiskey—"

  She said, "Stop. We're doing this thing, J.D.. We're flush. We can afford to help that woman. Yes, it's Christmas time, you lunkhead. People are supposed to do nice things for each other during Christmas. Hell, that's why I like Christmas."

  "Okay, okay."

  "We spend enough time swapping lead with owlhoots and trying to outwit rustlers and Indians. We're giving Mrs. Mitchell a Christmas present but it's a present to ourselves too. We need a break, you and me. We'll find that bed and that bottle of whiskey in Lordsburg...after this is done. There's a need here, J.D., and we're going to meet it, you and me. Christmas isn't just for children. It means something to adults too. Or to most of us."

  "Now, Kate—"

  "Just think about it. Folks being nice to each other. That's what the spirit of Christmas brings about. It gives me hope that maybe someday everyone can get along for the whole year 'round, not only during Christmas. Doesn't it give you hope? Hope for a better world."

  J.D. said, "It gives me hope that any godless owlhoots or heathen Indians we run across are also in a Christmas frame of mind."

  Kate knew that no woman could ever tame a man like J.D.—but she could handle him in the oldest way known to the species. She consciously shifted the way she sat against the headboard. Her legs stretched out before her beneath the clinging bed sheets, parted ever so slightly.

  She smiled and said in a throaty whisper, "It sure would please this girl if her husband would oblige her this one single favor in keeping with the holiday spirit."

  J.D. could not restrain his eyes from appraising her naked curves so clearly outlined beneath the thin sheet concealing her from the neck down. He said, "Uh, are we negotiating?"

  "Maybe we're just celebrating Christmas early. Maybe this girl would like Santa to come down her chimney."

  J.D. shucked his trousers. He climbed into their bed.

  He said, "Ho Ho Ho."

  Chapter 8

  The stagecoach and its six-horse team clattered to a stop in front of the Wells Fargo office, where the passengers waited. The midday sky remained a crisp, cobalt blue, the air pleasantly warm though a chill lingered in the shade.

  Mrs. Mitchell barely spoke, her manner composed.

  J.D. sensed strength in the woman's character; a strength that had raised a son and done her best to make a living by opening her home to boarders and raising that son alone since the death of the boy's father. The strength of character he noted in her now made J.D. regret his initial resistance to Kate's plan to reunite the woman with her son.

  Two additional passengers awaited the stage with them.

  A pretty young thing in her early twenties, attired for travel in pressed crinoline. Wisps of red hair curled from beneath a stylish bonnet that matched her dress. J.D. had caught some of the parting conversation between her and the pair of matronly ladies, her mother and an aunt, who were seeing her off. The young woman's name was Polly. She was on her way to rejoin with her husband, a no doubt gallant and dashing young infantry officer stationed at Fort Huachuca.

  A gentleman named Meek, whose name matched his slight frame and withdrawn, wary disposition, was a whiskey drummer dispatched by his company in St. Louis to pony up his route sales during the holidays. Mr. Meek was on his way home "to the blessed bosom of my family," as he phrased it when exchanging a brief, limp-wristed handshake with J.D. Mr. Meek wore a derby and toted a leather valise and a sample case.

  The stage driver greeted them, shouting to be heard over the racket of the stage rocking to a stop.

  "Well hey there, folks!"

  Billy Combs was on the box, the reins in his hands and one boot on the brake. He wore his hat sideways with the brim up. His scraggly moustache merged with a wildly flaring beard and shoulder-length hair. His clothing was dusty with grime.

  Sheriff Minton said, "Howdy, Billy." He used his good arm to consult his pocket watch. "Right on time, as usual."

  Everybody knew Big Billy Combs.

  Loud. Boisterous. Everyone's friend who knew a little about nearly everything and was always there to pitch in. A man of boundless appetites, as evidenced by the breadth of his girth. Billy liked bragging on himself. Folks accepted it because most of the brags were true. His voice was a gravelly croak; the voice of a hardworking man who'd eaten a lot of trail dust in his time.

  Billy eyed the sheriff's arm in a sling.

  "Looks like y'all had a spot of trouble."

  "The Waddell brothers robbed the bank," said Minton. "Matter of fact, they're out there somewhere." He vaguely indicated the open country beyond town. "You could mayhap encounter 'em."

  Billy snorted. He patted the stock of his Winchester.

  "You mean they might encounter me. Snake in the grass lit
tle pukes. I'll decorate the landscape with their innards if they come looking my way for trouble."

  "Just the same, you'll be glad you've got these two along just in case."

  Minton stepped aside.

  Billy got his first look at J.D. and Kate. His face split wide with a grin.

  "Well, cut off my legs and call me shorty if it ain't the two fastest guns in the West! Still hitched to each other, I see. I'm amazed you two haven't thrown down and blown big round holes in each other by this time."

  Billy found this so amusing, he threw back his head and let out a hoot that rattled nearby windows and grated on J.D.'s nerves.

  J.D. liked Big Billy.

  So did Kate, who could always give back as good as she got when it came to big galoots like him.

  She said with a smile of her own, "So who's tolerating your no-good ways now, you hunk of blarney? How's that sweet little fat Mexican wife?"

  Billy let loose another raucous guffaw.

  "Which one?

  J.D. said, "Same old Billy."

  Bill said, "This here's my last run before Christmas. I deliver you folks to the railhead at Contention and after that, a sweet little piece of work who waits tables at Til McLaren's is just waiting for her sweet Billy. Why, me and her—"

  J.D. lifted a hand. "I don't mean to curtail your enthusiasm, Bill, but me and Kate are sort of on a mission."

  They had come to know Billy Combs because of their bounty hunting policy. While the Wanted: Dead or Alive posters meant what they said, Kate and J.D. favored bringing fugitives in alive if at all possible. More often than not it would be Billy driving the stage while J.D. and Kate rode handcuffed to a prisoner they'd apprehended. It was a long range practical approach. The West was a place of feuds. It might take years but sooner or later, the family or friends of someone you'd killed years ago could likely show up out of nowhere and blow away the back of your head to settle the score. It just didn't pay to sow the seeds of one's own demise in such a fashion.