ALPENGLOW
by Kenneth Mark Hoover
Copyright 2011 by Kenneth Mark Hoover
Published by Argo Navis Publishing at Smashwords
I was writing a letter to the War Department when my deputy stomped into the office and kicked gypsum sand from his boots.
“Jake, can’t you do that before you come in?” I growled.
“Sorry, Marshal,” he said. “I was headed to the depot when I saw a man riding a sorrel and leading a pack mule down Front Street.”
I glared. “You stomped sand in my office to tell me that?”
Jake remained bland. “He’s got Indian scalps hanging from his saddle horn.”
I got up from my desk and lifted the Sharps Special from the gun rack. I didn’t like the scalps. They brought a better price than beaver pelts, and buyers shipped them to London for high dollar.
Haxan was dangerous enough without bringing an Apache war party down around our ears.
I followed Jake into the fine, cold morning. The blue sky covered the whole world like a tent and made me glad to be alive.
“Oh,” Jake said, “I also checked with Mr. Gorman down to the telegraph office. There’s no word on that Santa Fe stage robbed of its strong box last week.”
“That’s fine, Jake.” I looked around. “Where is this rough character?”
“Tying up outside the Quarter Moon,” Jake said. “My stars, he looks older than the mountains.”
“Don’t let those old codgers fool you.” We walked across the plaza. “They’re tougher than they look.”
In the winter, water will freeze inside stone and expand to crack the rock. This man’s face was like that. His white hair hung loose and there were flint arrowheads tied to his beard. He was outfitted in raw buckskin, thick boots, and a mangy otterskin cap.
My eyes fell to the long gun he carried in the crook of an elbow. “God, that’s a Hawken rifle!”
Jake chuckled. “My great-grandfather said he could shoot straighter with a Hawken than any gun made. But why keep an ancient powder rifle when there’s a modern Sharps .50 or Winchester to be had?”
“Belike he’s comfortable with the weight and feel of the iron.” I used a Colt Dragoon, a six-shot cap-and-baller. I could count the number of times I had missed with it on one hand.
“When he first went into the mountains that rifle was probably brand new.” I lowered my voice. “Jake, let me do the talking.”
“I’ll hang back and cover you.”
I fingered the scalps tied to the man’s saddle. The long hair was silky and dry. I walked up to the old man. “Hello, stranger.”
He fastened the tie-hitch for his mule without speaking. His eyes were shaded violet. It was like the sky shone through them and was magnified into another color. It unsettled me. They were the eyes that sized men up and looked for a way to cut them short.
I saw eyes like that every morning in my shaving mirror.
“Can you talk, Mister?” The left side of his face and throat were scarred with ancient white lines. Grizzly, or cougar. Maybe he couldn’t speak if the wounds were deep.
“I’m terrible sorry.” His voice rumbled like a broken pump handle. “It’s been long since good English was spoke at me. And my hearing isn’t what it might was.”
He had a strange way of speaking. Halting and uncertain. “I understand.”
He walked around the water trough and looked down. He jumped at his reflection in the still water. When his mounts plunged their noses into the water it broke the spell.
His eyes found the badge pinned to my vest. “You the law?”
“I’m a United States Marshal.”
He wasn’t impressed. “No need for lawing above the timberline. The mountains are the great equalizer. No offence, Mr. Marshal. I spent thirty years selling hides and trapping skins. I don’t ken the busy ways of towns.”
“You got a name?”
“Cesar Coffin. I had a flatlander name once, but I don’t remember it clear.”
Jake sidled up from behind. “Mr. Marwood,” he whispered, “that man’s addle-brained. You want me to fetch Doc Toland?”
I whispered back. “No. He’s just been alone a long time.” I asked Coffin louder, because he had obvious trouble hearing, “Where are you from, Mr. Coffin?”