The Sons of Chaos and the Desert Dead Table of Contents
The Sons of Chaos and the Desert Dead
by Aaron Polson
-1-
For the third night in a week, dreams troubled Emmanuel Corman’s sleep. Visions of stone-smooth faces and black, empty eye sockets pecked at him until he bolted upright, covered in sweat. He’d imagined a thunderous crash had woken him, but now the house was silent. He threw the sheets aside and stumbled out of bed, heading for the wash basin atop his dresser. He paused, listening.
A groaning sound came through the door, wood planks rubbing together. Corman, a tall, bone-thin widower with thick layers of iron grey hair, placed the noise down the hall—someone was plodding across the wooden floor in the parlor, if his ears served him.
But he was alone. Should have been alone. His hands began shaking, and he steadied himself against the dresser. He opened the top drawer, left side, and dug for his army revolver. Fingertips found cold metal. He drew the pistol. A quick check verified a full cylinder. Emmanuel Corman, retired lieutenant and veteran of Andersonville, forced his aging body to the door of his bedroom. His nerves jangled more than they had in the past fifteen years.
He closed his eyes, drew in another shuddering breath, and turned the knob. The smooth, porcelain surface slipped against his sweaty palm. The door creaked open. The hallway was dark.
“Hello?” he asked, his voice only a whisper. A thief wouldn’t answer, even a thief brazen enough to smash up his furniture. Emmanuel’s hand touched the center of his chest and found a lump under his shirt. His wife’s locket was always with him. He pulled a chain from under his shirt and studied a strange locket where his wife’s should have been. Emmanuel held the mysterious trinket between two fingers. It rattled when he shook it. His eyes narrowed, and the floor of his stomach dropped. In the moments which followed, the last moments of Emmanuel Corman’s fifty-two years on Earth, he heard little but the fevered throb of blood beating through his body and the low, mournful growl coming from the opposite end of the hallway.
“You there …”
The mass shifted in a pool of black. An oblong rectangle of starlight fell on the floor from an open window between Emmanuel and the intruder. A smell hung in the air, too. Emmanuel’s nose crinkled. Subtle, but sour. Death, but not the fresh, torn-flesh smell of the battlefield. This was more like old graves and empty houses, dirt and rot.
Emmanuel raised the gun, taking aim at the shape in the dark.
“This is my house.”
Thud, thud, thud …
“Stop. I’ll fire. Stay where you are.” Emmanuel’s voice rattled in his throat. He’d watched as the Confederate canisters tore gaping swaths through his lines at Andersonville. Standard-bearer after standard-bearer had fallen with great gouts of blood running from open wounds. He was accustomed to death, but the thing which moved through a beam of light in the hallway wasn’t just death.
The gun exploded, and the tight quarters of the hallway penned in the sound. Emmanuel blinked. The shape staggered, but didn’t stop. Emmanuel’s ears rang with the report, drowning the world. He could no longer hear the thump of his heart, but he felt it vibrate through his bones. Another blast from the pistol jarred Emmanuel’s arms.
And then the thing had him by the throat. The pistol fell with a thunk to the wooden floor. Emmanuel Corman fell a moment later, bathed in his own blood.
#
U.S. Marshal Sam Isherwood wiped a smudge from a window pane to have a better look at the full sunshine of a Santa Fe afternoon. A carriage passed on the dusty street. A grubby wagon captain climbed from his bench and patted his horses. Sam turned and nodded toward a woman across the room. “You clean up nicely.”
His sister, Evangeline, a slightly shorter and softer-edged version of her brother, smoothed the front of her ivory gown. “The darn thing still needs a few adjustments, but it’ll do. I was going for something more along the lines of beautiful. I think your time rubbing elbows with all those cowboys and ruffians has sullied your tongue. I’m surprised you were able to scour the prairie dirt from your fingernails and purge the curses from your vocabulary.”
Sam turned back to the window and looked out at the dusty streets of Sante Fe. “I’m not all that good with words, Evie. You know that. You’ve always been my kid sister, barely a girl when I left home, and now you’re getting hitched. Out here in this god-forsaken desert.”
“Santa Fe isn’t god-forsaken, Sam. And it isn’t really a desert. This is good sheep land. And Jonathan’s doing the best he can to make something of his life. He has the biggest ranch in the valley. This territory will reach statehood one day, sooner rather than later if—”
“And you expect to be first lady in the governor’s mansion. I understand. My sweet Evie, you haven’t changed much. Always thinking of the future.” Sam pulled at his collar. “This suit is ill-fitting.”
“Your belly is ill-fitting, brother. I’m not so sure law enforcement suits you anymore. The stress. They say it can destroy a man.”
Sam Isherwood closed his eyes. He felt the truth in his chest, the truth he couldn’t share with Evie. To her, big brother Sam just worked for the U.S. Marshal Service in Kansas. The worst he’d dealt with must have been a cattle rustler or two. She knew nothing of the papers he carried from President Arthur, his assignment and solemn bounty to hunt and kill a small group of persistent anarchists known as the Sons of Chaos. She knew nothing of his secret life, and Sam felt some relief for that small buffer.
“Hard for a man to keep his memories of a little girl, a sweet thing of ten, when she’s all grown up and beautiful. Your word, not mine. It still feels strange on my tongue.”
Evangeline beamed. “I’m twenty-two now, brother, and old enough by far to see to my own affairs. Thanks for coming, all the same. It wouldn’t have been right if you hadn’t. I mean that.”
“The rail. Owe it to the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe. A marvel of industry.”
A light rap sounded on the door. Evangeline smoothed the hair at her temples and straightened her shoulders. “You should go,” she whispered.
Sam nodded, loped to the door with a final glance at his sister, opened it, and nearly bowled over a man in a black suit.
“Ev—oh, Sam. Sorry.”
Jonathan Cubbage stood two inches below Sam Isherwood’s six feet. His face and hands were pale, the washed-out tan of an eggshell. When he spoke, his voice barely rose above a loud whisper, almost like he meant to draw a listener closer with his quiet manner. Despite these softer features, he was broad across the shoulders and wore healthy blooms of pink in his cheeks. Sam heard a sales pitch floating under his calm voice each time his lips flapped; he imagined a snake oil salesman’s pitch for miracle cures outside a circus tent. Minnie Cullen, one of Evangeline’s oldest friends and maid of honor, described him as a “dream”. Whatever the dream, he was not a hard man, a man of rough territory. Upon meeting him for the first time two nights ago at dinner, Isherwood had questioned what such a slick salesman might want in the harsh New Mexican frontier.
“Jonathan. Bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony, isn’t it?”
“Well—yes. I suppose. Just that—”
“I know. Time for the show to move along. I’ll see myself to the chapel. You might want to send Minnie to fetch Evangeline. Unless you have a taste for bad luck.”
“Of course not.” Jonathan nodded, his lips hooked at the verge of a smile.
At least Sam could believe the man loved his sister. He hoped as much, at least.
Sam hurried to his pew while the pianist started a tinny, near-barrelhouse rendition of the wedding march. The humble crowd stood and waited on his sweet little sister as she glided down the aisle in the small chapel. Her fiancé stood stiff and proper in front of the altar. It wasn’t long ago Sam would have seen an echo of himself in the clean, dark suit and fresh face of Jonathan Cubbage, but the Sons of Chaos stole anything clean from him back in Broughton’s Hollow.
Sam slipped into a pew near the back. Neither Jonathan nor Evangeline were Catholic, but the priest obliged them with the use of the small chapel adjacent to St. Francis’ Cathedral after a crisp twenty dollar note changed hands, or so Evie had told her brother. No surprise, of course. Sam Isherwood understood the reach of money.
The justice of the peace welcomed the crowd. Sam sat, and found his attention drifting as the man’s voice droned into the ceremony. Sam’s attention meandered into memory, all the way back to when beautiful Evangeline Isherwood was just Evie, his kid sister. He could almost see her stiff pigtails and the dusting of freckles across her nose. Always in the sun, that Evie, despite her mother’s best wishes to protect her fair skin. He heard his mother’s voice barking complaints when she brought a squirming frog into the house. Upon a command to “let it go,” Evie had. Mother had scurried for high ground atop a dining room chair while Evie held her belly and laughed.
Sam smiled—the first honest grin his lips had known in some time.
He glanced to his left and for a moment, and a ghostly chill brushed over his neck. A big, dark-haired man sat across the aisle. Sam thought of Abraham Reaver. The stranger turned toward the center aisle, his mouth open and grinning with a jaw full of perfect, beaming teeth. No. It wasn’t Reaver. Sam shifted in his seat and pulled at his collar. The New Mexico warmth and a sense of relief washed over him, thawing the chill.
Another stranger nudged Sam’s shoulder. “Old Cubbage landed a nice little thing for a wife, didn’t he?”
Sam’s smile vanished. “Yes. Yes, I suppose.”
The stranger opened his mouth to speak again, but the piano interrupted him. They stood as the bride and groom made their way past the congregation. Jonathan tilted his face toward Sam’s pew with a smarmy, political grin. A heavy stone hit Sam in the stomach. It was a familiar grin…
“Going to the dance this evening?” the stranger at Sam’s right asked.
“Yes, of course. She’s my sister.”
The stranger blushed and muttered something, but Sam didn’t hear. His gaze was pulled to the front of the chapel, following a pair of men in black suits through the side doors. A murmur crossed the crowd. Sam stepped into the aisle, pushing his way through the jostling guests. He scanned the rear of the chapel. Evangeline and John were gone. Those men in black—he felt the twinge every seasoned lawman might when noting something amiss.
Bursting through the door into the hot, dry sunshine, Sam’s head snapped one way and then the other, catching sight of a carriage as it vanished around a corner to the right. At his left, a jumble of excited voices pulled him. The sheriff—Sam only recognized him from the gleaming badge on his chest—stood next to one of the two men in black. The sheriff was shaking his head.
“What’s going—”
“Excuse me, sir?” The sheriff cocked his head. “This is a matter for the authorities.”
Same fumbled in his jacket and produced his badge. “I think I qualify, sir. Samuel Isherwood, U.S. Marshal.”
The sheriff whistled. “Well, what a pleasure we have, then. Seems the train’s bringing all kinds of goods to our little corner of the mountains. I’m M.C. Benton. Been sheriff before this place really took off. And now…” Benton shook his head. He was an aging, pot-bellied stump of a man just over five feet tall. Despite his height, the sun had hard-baked his skin into an almost rocky crust; the man seemed as tough as a crate of rail spikes.
“My sister—she’s the bride.” Sam gestured toward the chapel. “Where’s Evie? Where’s my sister?”
“Cubbage’s bodyguards have taken her. For safety. Something about—”
The man in the black suit cleared his throat, interrupting the sheriff. He was big, a full inch or two taller than Sam and square in the jaw, like an iron box. Around his bulging neck he wore a tight black tie. His eyes, well shadowed by a low boney eyebrow, narrowed to two black gouges in his face. The sheriff was smaller, but thick around the waist. He looked fairly old, but sun-wrinkled skin could lie as well as anything. His lower lip swelled with a lump of tobacco.
“Mr. Cubbage and his wife are well cared for.” The big man crossed his arms.
“Evangeline’s safe, Mr. Isherwood,” Benton said. “These men are John’s folk, bodyguards, too. Eli here has been duly deputized. If he says they’re cared for, his word is solid gold. I might have something for you, though, if you’re up for it. There’s been a murder—one of John’s business partners, and we think John might be next. Can’t be too careful out here. Plenty of lawlessness.”
#
The murdered man, Emmanuel Corman, had lived in one of the finest homes in Santa Fe, a two-story wood frame painted white in bold defiance of the adobe brick aesthetic. It was a flashy house. Sam Isherwood knew plenty of similar houses in Kansas. Most belonged to bankers, especially those bankers subsidizing small farmers and ranchers. Men of means and money. The look of something so bold always rankled Sam.
“Helluva way to spend your sister’s wedding day, Mr. Isherwood.” Sheriff Benton spoke from one side of his mouth.
“Sheriff, you know I’m a federal agent. My sister’s fi—husband might be mixed up in this murder. If his hired muscle has Evie covered, I want to do whatever else I can to help.”
Sheriff Benton narrowed his gaze and scratched his leathery chin. Sam felt, for a moment, like a prize bull under the uncomfortable once-over. “Right,” Benton went on. “Truth be told, we could probably use a little of your Federal influence. We’ve got us a problem with a land grab.”
“A land grab? I don’t understand.”
Sheriff Benton spat a long string of brown tobacco juice and kicked at the dirt around the wet spot. “Some fellas trying to buy up as much land as possible. I suppose they figure with the new train the rest of the country will want New Mexico wool by the box car. Our murder victim, God rest him, found himself endowed with plenty of good land.”
“Bilked the Indians out of it, I’m sure—but how would murdering him get anyone ahead?” Sam asked.
“It wouldn’t. Corman just sold his deeds to your new brother-in-law.” The sheriff glanced skyward. “Good money exchanged, of course. This territory might look like a bald spot on a dead man, but it’s got value. That Kansas train of yours upped the property something fierce. Few gangs of ruffians been giving ranchers and land owners hell for months now. Minor bits of violence. Scare tactics mostly—not like that mess in Lincoln County. A few dead sheep, but nothing like—well you might want to see for yourself.”
Both men beat their boots against the wood planking outer walls of the house, knocking off packed earth and dust. Once inside, Sam paused and rubbed his eyes, trying to focus. In comparison to the naked sunshine, he was standing in a hazy twilight. His pupils dilated, and he focused on a big man in black. One of Jonathan’s men—a big brute, like the others outside the church. He was talking with a thin, wiry deputy in the hallway. Sam glanced toward the other end of the hall. Emmanuel Corman’s body lay on the floor.
“That’s what I mean, Marshal. Ain’t had this kind of struggle with the gangs of yet. Just a bunch of drunks mostly. This has crossed the line.”
The body was on its back, hands stretched awkwardly in opposite directions. A revolver lay just beyond his outstretched fingertips. A mass of coagulated, dark blood covered the throat and upper body. The chest was broken open, evidenced by jagged tips of whitish bone. Corman’s ribs. The faint buzz of flies hung in the air. The heat combined with the stench of human meat not twenty-four hours dead spun Sam’s gut. He caught a hand against a wall to steady himself.
“The smell …”
“It’s the heat.”
“I’ve smelled plenty of death before, Sheriff. Bloated bodies in the heat of a summer afternoon.” Sam found a handkerchief and covered his nose. “One never gets used to the smell. One of these gangs did this?”
“Doesn’t seem like their usual, but I reckon so.”
“But motive? What motive could they have? Scare tactics? This is going to force other land owners to sell?”
Sheriff Benton shook his head. “Doubt it. Something of this magnitude might bring more than the law down on them. Maybe even Federal troops. Can’t have this kind of mess. Not now, not in New Mexico. I’ve sent some boys out to the last known hideout of the group giving us the most trouble. The Burton Gang—rumor is a couple of brothers run the show. If it’s one of the other gangs, the Burtons should have a finger on who.” Benton’s face twisted with disgust. “Look, let’s move down the hall. Granger here can take care of this mess.”
The thin deputy nodded.
Sam followed the sheriff through a door. Once inside Corman’s bedroom, Isherwood lowered the handkerchief. “How many men do you have?”
“A few. We’ve been busy lately. Just deputized some of Jonathan Cubbage’s boys.”
“His bodyguards? The men in black?”
Sheriff Benton nodded. “Your sister attached herself to a rather rich and influential man.”
Sam wiped his face with the handkerchief. Jonathan’s influence didn’t sit well with him. Maybe it was just tough giving up his sister, but Sam knew money and influence had a way of bringing the rot out of good people. He glanced at the dresser. Other than a few drops of water spilled from the basin and a drawer pulled out an inch, nothing looked out of place.“Anything missing?”
“How should we know? Not like the guy left a catalog of goods lying around.”
“But money. Any jewelry. If we found anything they left behind, it might open the door to possible motives.” Sam opened the drawer, fumbled with the contents, and shoved it home. “Other than the body, have you found anything else out of order?”
Deputy Granger stepped into the doorway and announced his presence by clearing his throat. “Matter of fact, we noticed a glass case had been broken into. Broken at, least.”
“What kind of case?”
“Big thing with shelves. Like a china hutch or something.”
Sam eyed the sheriff. “Funny thing for an old widower to have around here.”
“You see this house?” Benton asked. “This Corman fellow wasn’t exactly typical Santa Fe fare, Mr. Isherwood.”
“But funny for an old bachelor,” Sam reiterated. He stepped past Sheriff Benton into the hallway, following Granger’s lead. The body was gone, but a discolored stain on the hardwood remained. They entered a small room, the parlor, at the end of the hallway. A small couch at on one side, a table with lamp next to it. A large wooden cabinet lay facedown in the center of the floor. Sam knelt and picked up a fragment of glass. “What did he keep in here?”
Granger shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”
“Valuables of some sort would be my guess.” Benton looped his thumbs over his leather belt. Tiny bits of glass cracked as he moved across the room. “Hard to say exactly. Emmanuel Corman wasn’t an entertaining type of man.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked.
“Meaning I don’t suppose many people ever saw the inside of this place.”
“What this?” Sam lifted a bit of what looked like a rough, tan bit of pottery.
“Indian pots and pans, I suppose. Lots of fellas with too much money pick up that kind of thing all the time. The Pueblo Indians up north bring it down a few times each year. Corman had plenty of extra spending cash.”
Sam stood and dusted his hands against his dark trousers. “Suppose there was more. Was it valuable? Could that have been the intruder’s target?”
The sheriff frowned. “Maybe. I can’t imagine any of this being worth stealing. They sell that junk for pennies down in the street.”
Sam moved to the hall doorway and glanced at the blood stain. Something didn’t fit. If a gang wanted to scare a man off his land, why murder him? Why smash up a curio loaded with pottery? “You said Indian pots from Pueblos up north. Where’s the nearest Native settlement—one of these Pueblos?”
“North of here’s the Tesuque Pueblo. A mass of mud brick houses built in the foothills. A real Indian city. About ten miles, I suspect. Take a good half-day by horseback. But I wouldn’t waste your time with the Indians, Marshal. This is the Burton gang or a worse lot. We’ve never had much trouble—any really—with the Pueblos.”
“It wasn’t the Burtons,” said a deep, gravelly voice.
The man in black stepped into the room, momentarily a dark silhouette without a face, and then a man again as he moved closer. Isherwood bristled. The dark figure had been silent since they’d entered the house; Sam had almost forgotten he was there.
“They aren’t this messy. They might try and scare folks away, sell land cheap. But they’ve only broken little laws.” The man in black glared at the sheriff. Benton shifted his weight and fingered his belt. The floor boards squeaked. “Mostly with impunity. But this is bigger. Well outside of their usual behavior.”
Benton cleared his throat and looked at the mess on the floor. When the man in black left the room, Isherwood said, “One of your deputies doesn’t seem to have much respect for you, Sheriff.”
Benton spit on the carpet. “I’ll make sure to take care of—”
“Sheriff,” Deputy Granger interrupted. “Sheriff, look over here.”
Both men joined Granger at the window. A light breeze wafted into the room, and blood marred the sill.
“Corman’s, or his attacker’s?” Sheriff Benton asked.
“Hard to say. Corman got two shots off, and we haven’t found a divot in the wall. Maybe one hit home. Maybe both. It would have been hard for a murderer to climb out of here without spreading a little of his precious fluids.”
“One more bit, Sheriff. Corman’s desk wasn’t touched.” Deputy Granger nodded toward a walnut roll-top across the room. “Not even scratched.”
Sam said, “So the intruder didn’t come for any of his papers.”
“I found about a hundred dollars in a roll at the bottom of one drawer, and I figured this might be important.” Granger held out a stack of papers. “No thief is going to pass on cash.”
Benton took the papers and rifled through them. “Bills of sale. The most recent from … a large land transfer. Good ranch land north of town, sold to Mr. Jonathan Cubbage last week.” Benton smiled. “Your brother-in-law, Marshal.”
The cold pit came back to Sam’s stomach. He rubbed his neck with one hand. “Jonathan made a gift to Evangeline. A big plot of land, good grazing land, he’d said.
“In that case, I’d say it had been Emmanuel Corman’s.”
#
Evangeline Isherwood paced the floor of her bedroom, the second floor of Jonathan’s house. Her house now. There’d been much in the way of nervous conversations, comings and goings by Jonathan’s men. She moved to the window. Below, in the yard before the house, Jonathan spoke with several black-suited guards. A buggy came around from the stables. Jonathan climbed aboard. Evangeline’s fingers clutched the hem of her dress.
She turned. The men had been kind enough to bring up a few wedding gifts and set them on her dressing table. Her fingers ran along the smooth wrapping paper of the largest box. She picked it up. Heavy. With a deep breath, she began tearing through the paper. Underneath, a wooden crate with hinged lid. Evangeline brushed away saw dust, lowered her hands on either side, and lifted out a heavy earthen statue. It looked like a seated clown with broad stripes of black and white cut across its body. The surface was rough, but cold, and an accompanying cold shot from her fingers into her hands and arms. Evangeline shivered.
“Silly,” she muttered. “Who would send such a strange thing?”
Well, I think we can all agree this is sounding a little fishy. Turn up next week for the second episode of Aaron Polson’s The Sons of Chaos and the Desert Dead, and find out if all — or anything — is what it seems.
