Chapter 12

After I left Feleena at Rosa’s front door, I headed for home. It was almost five, so I didn’t have time to stop by the saloon. Molly made a big to-do over my suit. When I explained why I was wearing it, she made an even bigger fuss.

“That was a wonderful thing for you to do for that poor woman. You are a fine man, Tyler McGuinn.”

I told her it was the least I could do for the honor Anna showed me by letting me use her husband’s saddle. I basked in Molly’s praise, because her opinion of me counted a lot in my book. She told me I’d have to wait for her to reward me, because she had supper to finish cooking.

I went to my room to change and was back to the dining room at a quarter till six. As I hoped, Mister Gordon was already in the parlor. I sat down on the couch and quietly filled him in on my trip to the haberdasher in El Paso del Norte. Gordon also thought it odd that the man didn’t say he wouldn’t take my money because it might be counterfeit. To Gordon, it was an indication that the man at least knew something about the forgery ring, or might even be involved in it. While we were talking, I had a thought.

“I’m going down there tomorrow and have some business cards printed up. I’ll keep my ears open at the printers. It seems to me that a printer’s shop would be a logical place to check out.”

Gordon agreed, he had visited all the printers on this side of the river all the way to Santa Fe, but had no jurisdiction in Mexico. With relations touchy between the two governments, he would have to have some compelling proof before he asked for help from the Federales.

I guess there is some reward for a good deed, or else the card gods were smiling on me Wednesday night, because I won a nice poke. I was already sixty dollars ahead for the week, including paying for my clothes and upgrading Melosa’s accommodations at the stable.

It was costing me about half what I was paying for my own rent to board Melosa, but she was living the life of Riley the same as Liz’s bay and Pen’s big black stallion.

The first time I saw Pen perched up on that huge beast floored me. The damned thing was so big, it was a wonder Pen didn’t need a ladder to help him mount up. But I’ll give Pen credit, he was a superb horseman, and his stallion was fast as hell. Pen won some good money wagering on races with the local cowboys.

If Melosa felt intimidated by her upscale stable mates, she didn’t show it, but she was always happy to see me. I made it a point to drop in on her about every day to give her a little treat or brush her. If I had even the slightest excuse, we went riding.

By now I had worked out what I thought was a pretty good routine for myself. I climbed out of bed at eight in the morning and had breakfast with Molly. From Molly’s I went to Clem’s. I had a bath every couple of days, a daily shave, and my hair trimmed once a week. Unless I had other business, I manned my office and did some of Pen’s paperwork and banking from ten or ten-thirty until one or two. I was free all afternoon until dinner at six, so I usually slipped in a little siesta. After dinner, I worked at the cantina until it closed. Some nights that was as early as eleven and some it was as late as two in the morning before I came straggling home.

Thursday I received my first criminal case client. I was sitting in my office, when a deputy came in and handed me a note from the court clerk. The note directed me to go to the jail and interview one Pedro Ruiz, post haste. The sheriff’s office and jail were located at the opposite end of the main street from the railroad station. I walked down there and met the County Sheriff for the first time.

The sheriff was a big, hard-eyed, tough looking man of about forty. His name was Mathew Faulkner. My Ty Ringo memories said he was typical of the lawmen who survived out here on the frontier. He looked me over thoroughly as I handed him the letter from the court. His gaze lingered on my pistol and holster. He finally turned his attention to the letter, reading the few lines quickly. When he finished the letter, he put it down and fixed me with that hawk like look again.

“I’ve had someone keeping an eye on you, ever since that shooting over at the Toro. I was right surprised to see you were a lawyer. Men that wear their gun the way you do usually have another line of work.”

The sheriff’s speech was just like the rest of him, gruff and blunt. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled slightly.

“Who knows better the need to protect yourself than a man who sees mostly people who broke the law? Besides, I’m not exactly setting the world on fire as a lawyer, so I am working for Mister Smythe until I get established.”

The sheriff actually smiled at my explanation.

“I never thought of it quite that way,” he said thoughtfully. “Anyway, your desperado is in cell three. He’s a mean little cuss, took three deputies to haul him in. He’s charged with assault, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest with violence and destruction of private property. You need to leave your pistol here before you go back.”

I handed the sheriff my pistol and watched him lock it in his desk drawer, before I went back to meet my client.

The man in cell number three was a small, wiry vaquero with a scowl on his lumpy, beat-up face, and a shitty attitude.

“Wha chew wan, gringo?” he snarled in badly broken English.

“A little respect for starters,” I answered in Spanish. “I am your abogado if you want one.”

When he saw that we could speak together in Spanish, Pedro did want me to represent him - not that either of us thought it would do much good. By his own admission, he was guilty as hell of gross stupidity, as well as everything else he was charged with. His story was that, yes, he did it, but he had been provoked much beyond what a man of honor could tolerate.

According to Pedro, he was minding his own business, enjoying a shot of tequila and the company of sweet Rosalinda at the Dos Amigos Cantina, when three Yaquis came in, bragging what great cowboys they were. Now according to Pedro, everyone in Texas and Mexico knows that he is the best vaquero who ever mounted a horse, so he told the gringos that. One thing led to another, and Pedro was forced to defend his honor in front of the woman he loved. He was truly sorry about the deputies, but said when the bloodlust of his Aztec ancestors was upon him, he had difficulty distinguishing between friend and foe. As for biting off the ear of the loud mouthed cowboy, for that, he had no regrets.

“He wouldn’t listen to the truth anyway,” Pedro explained.

I asked Pedro a few questions and found out where he worked. I knew I couldn’t get him out of this, but maybe I could mitigate some of the charges. Just before I left, Rosalinda came in to visit him. I did a double take at her, because Rosalinda was a big old gal. She was every bit as tall as me, and probably weighed at least two hundred and fifty solid pounds. She had breasts the size of beach balls and an ass to match. Pedro was maybe five foot two in his boots, and was lucky if he weighed one-twenty.

When Pedro explained who I was, she practically tackled me in a bone-crushing bear hug. She was crying crocodile tears, and wailing for me to save her man as if he were on the way to the gallows. I finally extracted myself from her python like arms and told her I would try my best. I asked her if she could fix it with the owner of the Dos Amigos to drop any charges they had against Pedro.

“Sí Señor Abogado,” she said emphatically. “If that one-eyed pig refuses, I will crush his puny cajones like grapes.”

That, I thought to myself, ought to take care of that. I bid Pedro and Rosalinda good day, and went back out to talk to the sheriff again. He handed me my pistol, as we discussed how badly he thought Pedro should be punished for scuffling with his deputies. After some jawing, he allowed that maybe a few days in jail would suffice, since his men had pretty much beat the crap out of Pedro with the axe handles they carried anyway. The assault was pretty much a wash according to the sheriff, because the three cowboys had hot-footed it out of town to catch a big cattle drive up in Odessa.

I left the sheriff’s office feeling pretty good about Pedro’s chances, now that he was down to facing just a disturbing the peace charge. I went back to my office and wrote up a plea for Pedro and hand carried it to the District Attorney over at the Courthouse. I was lucky enough to snag a few minutes of the DA’s time. He looked at the original charges and my proposal cockeyed, until I filled him in. To my great relief, he signed off on the plea, and asked the clerk to put the case of El Paso County vs Pedro Diaz on tomorrow’s docket.

I figured I had done Pedro about as much good as possible, so I headed back to my room for a well deserved siesta. I popped in to see Molly before going to my room, and was pleasantly surprised to see her sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and laughing with Anna Lopez. Both women looked up at me and smiled.

“We were just talking about you, Tyler,” Molly said. “Your ears must be burning something fierce.”

I kissed both women on the cheek and poured myself a cup of coffee from Molly’s seemingly endless pot. I sat down between them and told them about my first case. Anna spoke decent English, but I still had to back up and explain a couple of things in Spanish to her. Both women were hooting with laughter when I described my meeting Rosalinda.