Chapter 9: Cimarron

I wired Sheriff Burns that I was on my way to Springer via the trail over the Sangre de Cristos and that I expected to arrive in Springer on Friday, the twenty-second of June, two days hence. I also sent a wire to Matias Salazar saying I expected to be in Mora sometime the following week to pick up Amador Cabal, but I was going to Springer first.

The moon was full on the twentieth, so I would have well-lit nights, in case I decided to take up nighttime postage stamp collecting or some other nocturnal pursuit. In truth, seeing the snow-patched, rocky peaks bathed in the bold white light of the full moon was a sight to cherish. Not that I expected to do much moonlit sight-seeing as we were also enjoying the shortest nights of the year, so I was going to have to sleep hard and fast because the birds always seemed to get up an hour or two before the sun did.

I crossed over the pass and arrived in Therma late that same day, Wednesday, just as it was fading into twilight. I put Roscoe, my sorrel quarter horse gelding, into the livery barn and asked the owner if I could bunk in his hayloft. He told me not to snore because it kept the horses awake. It sounded like a joke he had made countless times before. I laughed anyway.

After brushing Roscoe I took a couple scoops of the stable’s oats and put it in his feed bucket, then checked to make sure the water bucket was full; both pails were held to the wall in home-made lumber brackets. There was hay already in a wall-mounted metal rack. I patted Roscoe’s withers, closed the stall gate, then went to wash up by the pump. After that, I headed down the street to the cantina for a beer and some supper. Last time I was there they had a delicious lamb stew.

Tonight, they had a telegram for me.

Dep US Marshal Judah Becker

Rudolfo Manzaneres likely hiding at family hunting cabin Cimarron.

Wayne Burns Sheriff Colfax County

On the bottom there was a note written in a different habnd:

Esperamos su visita. (We look forward to your visit.) - Sofia Salazar

The woman who had handed me the message was the cantina’s cook and, with her husband, one of the owners. I asked her, “How did this telegram get here?” There wasn’t a telegraph line to Therma, nor did I think Sofia Salazar had added telegram messenger to her job list, not at that distance.

“My husband went to Mora on Monday to purchase supplies,” the proprietress explained. “Which reminds me, I have fresh lamb chops if you’re interested. Sofia knew my husband was in Mora and planning to return home today, so she asked him to bring the telegram to you.”

“Well, thank you very much. Tell your husband thanks, too.”

“You’re very welcome. But what about the lamb chops?”

Cimarron was twenty-five mountain trail miles from Therma, on the same trail I was taking to Springer. Springer was twenty-five miles beyond Cimarron, mostly on easier, lowland trail. Knowing that the Manzaneres boy was in Cimarron was going to save me at least the fifty miles to Springer and back to Cimarron, plus the frustration of knowing that I’d passed right by the kid.

I realized that Sheriff Burns had done his best to notify me after he had received my wire, trying to save me a lot of unnecessary riding. He’d probably sent a wire to Taos but, expecting I’d already left, he sent a wire to Mora, in case I went there first. And, thanks to Sofia’s quick thinking, it had worked out, especially as Cimarron didn’t have the telegraph, either.

I’d left Therma early and reached Cimarron just at two-thirty. There was a fair-sized trading post that also had a saloon. I went in and had a beer and asked after the Manzaneres boy.

“You here to arrest him, Deputy?” the proprietor asked. We were speaking Spanish.

“I am. It seems a shame since it was an accident, but a man is dead, so the court will have to work it out.”

The man nodded. “It is too bad. He’s a good boy who made a bad mistake. But then, Ernesto Guerrero was a good man, well-liked in these parts, and he left a wife and child.” He shook his head. “There is nothing good that can be gleaned from this. It is all sadness.”

He gave me directions to the Manzaneres cabin, which was a mile southeast of the pueblo, on the Cimarron River. It had been the family home, but the children moved away and the old man had died eight years ago; his wife, the mother, had died years before that. The children and their families came in the summer, if they could, when the it was hotter in the lowlands, and the men and boys would come in the fall, to hunt. This time, the two cousins had gone off on their own, to Therma, with the tragic result.

“He’s scared, Deputy. I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble, but he’s scared, so...,” he shrugged and shook his head.

“I will do my best not to hurt him. I’ve got no interest in making this bad situation worse.”

He nodded and I left.

Taking Rudolfo Manzaneres into custody was uneventful.

I tied Roscoe to a tree about a hundred yards from the cabin, then walked up with my shotgun and stood behind another tree and called for the boy to come out unarmed and I promised not to shoot or hit him or otherwise harm him.

He came out. A slim boy of average height, but his face was tear-streaked and anguished. He looked like hell, like someone had reached down into him and ripped his soul from its roots.

“I did it,” he said, standing on the front porch. “It wasn’t Amador. I killed poor Señor Guerrero. He was a good man. Amador had worked at his mill and said how nice he was. I am so sorry, I am so sorry.”

He had a horse in the small stable out back. I had him saddle the animal, a nice gray quarter horse mare. With my shotgun nearby, I snugged a rope loop around the boy’s neck and tied the other end around my waist, then had him mount up. I manacled his hands behind his back and tied his legs to the stirrups with lengths of thin cordage. Then I removed the loop from around his neck and my waist.

There had been no food in the cabin, so, as we were had to go back through Cimarron for whichever trail I chose, I stopped at the trading post and bought a can of tinned meat and fed it to him as he sat in the saddle. I also gave him two cups of water, especially since the meat was salty. The owner came out and talked with him and told him he’d send word to his parents. I said that I’d wire them from Mora.

I bought two more tins of the meat, a tin of peaches, and one of corn, then got a receipt for all of them. Mostly I carried biscuit flour, pickled eggs, bacon, and tinned beans for trail food, and I realized I didn’t have enough for the appetite of a boy his age who had not eaten in two days, so I laid in the extra supplies.

It was seventy miles to Mora by the foothills trail and one hundred miles by way of flatland trails. Either way, I’d get paid seven dollars for prisoner mileage via the shorter trail. That was in addition to the three dollars and thirty cents I’d earned for the fifty-five outbound miles to Cimarron and the two dollars for the arrest -- minus the marshal’s cut. And I still had many miles to go, from Mora to Santa Fe.

I figured, if my prisoner was cooperative, we could make it to Mora in two days on the foothills trail. He was, and we did. I think he was anxious to reconcile with his cousin. He explained that their involvement had been revealed because he had told his girlfriend, in confidence, that he and his cousin were responsible for Ernesto Guerrero’s death and the guilt was making him miserable. His girlfriend had told her best friend, who had told her mother, who had told her husband, who had reported it to the sheriff. In turn, Rudolfo had learned of the sheriff’s involvement via a reverse of the same grape vine, and he had fled.

Despite my mission, I was a bit surprised to realize how good it felt to be riding into Mora, almost like coming home. I arrived on Saturday, June twenty-third, several days earlier than I’d anticipated. This was thanks to Sofia getting the word to me about Manzaneres being in Cimarron.