I rode into Las Floritas late one afternoon and tied off my horse in front of the abbey of Santa Maria. The nun at the gate knew me; she pulled the wrought iron back and silently let me pass, nodding at my murmured gracias. Another nun met me at the door to the infirmary.
"She is waiting for you," Sister Berta said. She was tiny, birdlike. Granted, I'm a big man, but she always struck me as breakable. "She's had Last Rites. It won't be long now." "It" was my mother's death. The nuns had taken her in when her health started to deteriorate. Cancer. Last fall it began to claim her, inch by inch. I live on the road, and besides, I didn't have the faintest idea how to care for her. The nuns at Santa Maria did, so I left her in their care and sent money every week. I entered the infirmary and made my way to the third bed as I had done so many times in the past year. I've always thought that my mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. If I'm prejudiced, tough. Now she was a wraith. Her lovely face was reduced to angular cheekbones and sunken eyes. Her eyes were closed, but they opened painfully when I approached. "Eduardo," she whispered. I sat in the chair beside the bed and took her skeletal hand in mine. "Estoy aquí, Mamá," I said, fighting to swallow the lump in my throat. "I'm here." We talked some, sat silent some, and just after the abbey bells chimed for Compline, Mamá sighed and passed over. The attending nun asked me what I wanted to do after they'd prepared the body. I told her that I'd be back in the morning, after I'd had a chance to talk to the undertaker. I left the abbey and rode out to the little cottage at the edge of town where I'd been born. I sat at the kitchen table in the dark and listened to the ghosts moving around in my head. My mother in all the stages of her life. My father, a big man who had had a bigger heart. Me as a child, and as a teenager. I woke with a crick in my neck. Sometime during the night, I'd rested my head across my arms and fallen asleep. The sun was up and the kitchen was getting warm. I needed to take a bath and go see the undertaker. I was surprised at the number of people who showed up for the funeral. Mamá was always telling me that I'm too cynical, that I don't think much of other people. Why couldn't I be more like my father, she'd say. I needed to be more compassionate. I used to tell her that compassion in my line of business would get me killed. "Madre de Dios," she'd murmur, pursing her lips in dismay. And now I looked at the row of faces paying their respects. The Petersons, who ran the grocery. Cecelia de la Garza, who'd been my mother's friend since childhood. Most of the Santiago family, and they represented a good portion of the town. Miss McCleary, who'd taught me in school. Milo Tobias and Jess Stuart, who'd worked with my dad out at the Kilgore Ranch. Mr. and Mrs. Kilgore. The nuns from Santa Maria. Padre Miguel looked at the group of us assembled around Mamá's grave and began to pray. I listened with half an ear, wondering how in the hell I was going to keep my deathbed's promise to my mother. I stayed in Las Floritas for a week, long enough to see the finished headstone placed on Mamá's grave. "Sofía Bartzaga Ezekiel. Beloved wife and mother." Next to it was my father Nathaniel's grave. Seeing the headstones made it final for me, made me realize that the two people I loved the most were beyond my reach. Ten days later, I was a hundred miles north, trying to get to Emmettsville before a storm hit. The sky opened up just as I reached the livery. My horse was clean and dry, but I got soaked running across the street to the saloon. Some people are born loners, and I'm one of them. One of the things that makes me a good bounty hunter is that I can sit and wait for hours without attracting attention. The hell of it is when I'm hungry and nobody at the saloon seems to realize that I'm there. A few heads turned when I walked through the door, but most people don't give a half-breed like me a second look. I sat at a corner table so I could see everyone in the room and everyone coming through the door. After sitting for fifteen minutes or so, I motioned to a serving girl. She looked startled to see me sitting there, but took my order and disappeared behind the bar. I scanned the room to see if I recognized anyone. Frank Carter was at a table near the bar, shoveling his dinner into his face without seeming to chew. But Frankie had been a good boy lately and didn't have a bounty on him right now. A flash of white hair in the corner caught my eye. A fellow was sitting with his back to me, whispering to the giggling girl on his lap. I couldn't see enough of his face to certain, but my instincts told me that the man could be Gilbert Chance. The hair was a dead give-away. Pure white, hanging down past his shoulder blades and tied into a ponytail with a leather thong. I sat and watched Chance while I ate, but he never turned his head enough for me to get a good look at him. I tried to picture his face from the wanted posters, but all I could conjure up was a long, narrow face. Try as I might, I couldn't remember the look of his eyes, his nose, his mouth. Ah, well. I could wait. After a bit, Chance took the woman by the arm and pushed her up the stairs ahead of him, never once looking back. Figuring he'd be here for the night, I finished my meal. When I paid my tab, I asked the bartender if I could rent a room for the night. "Six bits," the barkeep said, tossing a key on the bar. I paid him, shouldered my bedroll and saddlebags, and climbed the stairs. I was pleased with the room, mainly because it was right across the hall from the room I'd seen Chance enter. I could hear murmured voices behind their door, punctuated by an occasional giggle. I entered my room, closed the door behind me, and spread my bedroll in front of the door. There was almost a two-inch gap between the floor and the bottom of the door. Perfect. I picked up the oil lamp from the nightstand and set it on the floor beside the bedroll. Turned up about half way, the lamp gave me enough light to read by as I lay on the floor. A couple of hours later, I rose and set the lamp back on the stand. I made my way back to my bedroll in the dark and resumed my post. I wasn't worried about Chance leaving without my knowledge. I've been a bounty hunter too many years to be a heavy sleeper. Just as the sun was coloring the sky, the door across the hall opened. Peering through the crack under the door, I watched a pair of pink satin slippers emerge and turn towards the stairs. I rose quietly and rolled up my bed. Unless Chance had taken to wearing pink satin slippers, he was probably still in the room. I crept across the hall and put my ear to the door. Nothing. I turned the knob and slowly opened the door. Gilbert Chance was lying on the bed, the sheets pulled up to his middle, his left wrist shackled to the iron bedpost. I stopped short when I reached the bed. Chance was a lot younger than I had originally thought---maybe mid-twenties. The white hair fooled me. I wondered if he was an albino, but then his eyes opened, and they were as brown as mine. "Thank God," he said softly. "I thought I was gonna be stuck here for a while." "What happened?" I asked. "Ow," Chance winced. "Don't shout." The fact that I had a sawed-off shotgun in my hand either didn't register with him or he'd accepted that he was a sitting duck. "I'm not shouting," I replied, turning the chain over to get a better look at it. "You're just hung over." "And broke," Chance scowled. "The little bitch robbed me." "What I want to know," I mused aloud. "Is where in the world she got the shackle? They don't just grow on trees. I'm either going to have to get a blacksmith to break this or try to fire a bullet at the chain. Either way doesn't bode well for your hand or your hangover." "Check my coat pockets," Chance said. "There's a metal tube in there for matches." I found his coat on the floor. It was heavy on one side, and in the pocket I found a little Bulldog revolver. When I held up the tube, Chance said, "Open it." I did, and poured the matches out into my palm. Among the matchsticks were two slivers of metal. "Lock picks," I said, suddenly comprehending. "I should have known. I don't know how to use them." "I do." I handed Chance the picks and he began to work on the shackle. I pulled the chair to the door, sat down and waited with the shotgun across my knees. Chance fiddled for a good five minutes until the metal bracelet opened with a snick. He swore as the circulation came throbbing back into his hand. Chance sat up and swung his legs onto the floor, keeping the sheets bunched at his middle. He squinted at me. "You're Ned Ezekiel, aren't you?" "Yes." "I've heard a lot about you." "Probably." Chance looked at his trousers, lying in on the floor near my feet. "I don't suppose you'd step outside so I can get dressed." "No," I said. "You'd just crawl out the window." "Turn your back?" Chance looked hopeful. I shook my head and his face fell. I leaned over, picked up his trousers from the floor and tossed the pants to him. He pulled them on, then attempted to lean over and retrieve his shirt from the floor. His skin turned green under his tan, and he sat up quickly with a groan. "Here," I said, getting to my feet. I bent over, picked up his shirt and tossed it on the bed. I mentally measured the length of his ropy arms and vowed to stay out of their reach. Chance might really be hung over or he might be one hell of an actor. "Damn you," he said wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "I've heard you were a cold one, Ned. And I oughta hate you, since you're gonna put me in jail. But you've treated me decently ever since you walked through that door. Nobody's ever done that to me before." I didn't know what to say, so I kept quiet. "What are you?" he asked as he pulled on the shirt and buttoned the cuffs. "I'm a bounty hunter," I replied. "I know that," Chance snapped, rolling his eyes. "Don't take this as an insult, but you're the strangest lookin' black man I've ever seen." Oh. Me and my big Roman nose. "My father was black, but my mother was from Spain." "Was." The word wasn't lost on Chance. "I take it they're both dead?" "Yes. My dad's been dead a long time and my mother died two weeks ago." "Jesus, Ned," Chance said softly. "Didn't you even stay home long enough to mourn her?" "I did for a while," I admitted. "But there are too many ghosts there to stay long." A little voice in the back of my mind was screaming at me to shut up. I rarely talked to anyone about anything, and here I was, blurting out my life story to this fellow. The strange thing was that he was nodding silently as if he understood. "My whole family was killed in a house fire when I was fifteen," Chance said quietly, almost to himself. "Mother, father, and younger brother." "Where were you?" I asked, my voice sounding too sharp to my ears. Chance grimaced as he pulled the thong from his hair and retied it. "Fifty miles away, helping a neighbor move his cows to market. I came home to find there was no home. Everything was gone." "What did you do?" That little voice in my head was telling me not to ask, not to pry. It wasn't any of my business. Chance shrugged. "Lived with my uncle for a while." He gave a short, mirthless laugh. "I don't think he even remembered that I was there. He's a bit absent-minded. Been out on my own ever since." "Don't take this as an insult," I said, using Chance's words. "But I thought you'd be older." Chance grinned. "It's the hair. Somebody in every generation of my dad's family has it. My hair was this color the day I was born." "Bet you got picked on a lot as a kid." The words were out of my mouth before I knew it, and I regretted saying them. Chance's smile sharpened. "At least I developed a good right hook from it." He cocked his head sideways at me and said, "I could probably ask the same of you." I shrugged. "I was pretty big, even as a child. But it didn't stop them from talking about me behind my back. They were just too afraid to say it to my face." "I know I would be," Chance said. He took his coat off the bedpost where I'd hung it. "Let's get this show on the road," he sighed. That little voice in my head was nagging me again, telling me that this man would be a good candidate for an apprentice. That's ridiculous, I told the little voice. Isn't it? I put Chance's gun in my coat pocket and followed him out the door, stopping only to pick up my things in the hall. When we got to the saloon porch, I motioned Chance to head towards the livery. "Why not just turn me in here?" he said in surprise, pointing to the sheriff's office at the other end of the street. "That jail is as small as an outhouse," I said, trying to form a plan in my mind. "Hell of a place to spend time." Chance gave me another surprised look, but then shrugged and led the way to the livery. He was tall and rangy, but I still topped him by a few inches and a good fifty pounds. Inside, I paid the groom for both our horses' board. Chance had a nice bay mare that looked fast. I saddled my buckskin gelding and led him outside. I put Chance's gun in my saddlebag. Chance led his horse out and swung into the saddle. "Do you do this for every bounty?" he asked, still puzzled. "No," I replied. "But Cholla isn't far. And if you have any ideas about taking off," I added pointedly. "I have no qualms about putting a bullet between your shoulder blades." "Huh," Chance smiled sardonically. "I bet you would, too." The ten-mile ride to Cholla gave me time to form a plan, look at it from all sides and pick it apart. As we pulled our horses to a halt in front of the sheriff's office, I said, "Go in there and turn yourself in." Chance's eyes went wide in disbelief. "You're not gonna take the bounty on me?" He dismounted and looped the reins around the hitching rail. "I have a proposition for you," I said as I dismounted. "I promised someone that I would teach another person my job. You're as likely a candidate as any. The bounty on you is low, so I suspect that if you turn yourself in, the judge will probably only give you 30 days. I'll look after your horse and your gun." I scanned the buildings across the street. I nodded to the one at the end. "One month from now, I'll be waiting in that bar over there. If you want to work for me, come in and talk to me. Otherwise, your horse and your gun will be waiting for you outside if you want to leave." Chance crossed his arms and looked at the ground, digesting what I'd just said. His head came up. "Why me?" he asked finally. "Why not?" I answered. "I think you would have been a different person if you'd only had a break in life. So I'm giving you one." And I hope to God that I'm doing the right thing. Chance's horse nudged him; he patted her absently on the neck. Then he squinted at me. "You aren't one of them holy do-gooders, are you?" The idea was so preposterous that I had to smile. "Far from it." I held out my hand. "You'll think about what I said?" He took my hand and shook it. "Guess I'll have a whole month to think about it," he said dryly. Chance shook his head in disbelief again, ducked under the hitching rail and walked into the sheriff's office.