THEY PULLED THE Ford up to the infirmary door and one of the soldiers ran to get a stretcher. As they unloaded Bovard from the backseat and carried him in, Malone yelled at the nurse to call a doctor. Then he and two privates escorted Chimney over to the brig and took his manacles off, locked him in a cell. “Anything I can get you?” the sergeant said.
“Yeah,” Chimney said, tossing his derby onto the iron bunk. “I want to see my girlfriend.” Back at the Blind Owl, he’d held firm until a second or two before he sensed they were going to fill him full of holes, and then he’d held his hands up high. To look at Matilda one more time, he had decided in the end, would be worth any number of trips to the gallows.
“What?”
“My girlfriend. Her name’s Matilda. She works out at the Whore Barn.”
Malone shook his head. “If I was you, Mr. Jewett, I’d be worried about other things right now.”
“Why should I be worried? I done told ye a dozen fuckin’ times, my name’s Hollis Stubbs. Shit, you should be pinnin’ a medal on me instead of puttin’ me in jail. I saved your buddy’s ass.”
“Bullshit,” Malone said, “you’re Chimney Jewett.” He held up a wanted poster. “I’ll eat my hat if this ain’t you. Now where’s the other two?”
Chimney sat down on the bunk and leaned his back against the brick wall. He had seen Cane out of the corner of his eye as the soldiers were pulling him and the Ford through town like trophies, and he was wondering that himself. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to fantasize that somehow his brother might save him, could almost see him slipping up behind this fucker and putting one through his brainpan. But before he let it go any further, he shook it off. There was no sense in hoping for a fucking miracle; even Bloody Bill would have had a hard time busting someone out of an army base. Still, he’d be goddamned if he was going to admit to anything. He looked over at the sergeant. “Like I said, I want to see my girlfriend.”
“You fess up to who you really are, and I’ll see what I can do,” Malone replied. Then he walked back to the hospital and had a couple of soldiers pull the car off to the side and unhitch the horses, take them to the stables. After waiting until Bovard was wheeled into the operating room, he sent another private to fetch Captain Fisher. He was standing outside drinking a lukewarm cup of coffee when the man bounded around the corner of the building. Though it was the middle of October and the night air had a nip to it, the captain was dressed in nothing but house slippers and a pair of brown jodhpurs. A set of binoculars hung from a cord around his neck. He glanced over at the car. “So you found Bovard?”
“Yes, sir,” Malone said. “He’s inside gettin’ patched up.”
“What the hell happened?”
After the sergeant related the details of how they came upon the lieutenant mutilated in the back room of the Blind Owl, Fisher said, “A jar of teeth? Did ye bring ’em with ye?”
“No, sir, I didn’t think of that.”
“Shame,” Fisher said. “I would have liked to have seen ’em. Was the bartender a Mex?”
“Uh, no, sir. He was a white man.”
Digging a wad of tobacco out of his pouch, Fisher smiled contentedly. It had become a habit with him, ever since returning to the States, to spend time with the moon on clear nights, partly because its craters and barren plains reminded him of the Mexican landscape, but mostly because it seemed to be the most honest thing he could find to confide in anymore; and tonight he’d had a long talk with that white orb and decided that he would move to the Sierra Madre after his current commission was over with. No matter how much he cursed and ridiculed Mexico, he’d realized over the last few days that he’d never been as happy as he had been there. He’d give his wife the house in Connecticut and his pension. What did it matter? He could live on beans and frijoles and whatever he could kill. “So you think the one you hauled in is one of those Jewetts?”
“Yes, sir. Though he won’t admit. Keeps sayin’ he’s someone else, but he’s the spittin’ image of one of ’em on the poster.”
“Have ye tried to beat it out of him?”
“Sir?”
“The truth. I don’t care how tough he thinks he is, get you a pair of brass knuckles and work him over for a while. He’ll talk.”
“Well, I don’t think—”
“Of course, there’s other ways to make a man squeal, too. If you don’t like blood, take him over to that goddamn Majestic Theater and make him sit through an hour of that goddamn Lewis Family and their monkey. He’d probably rat out the whole goddamn bunch of them then.”
“Sir?” Malone said. “The Majestic? I’m not sure I’m following.”
“My wife’s in town this week and insisted on going there last night. I’ll tell you what, Sergeant, I’m still not recovered from it. The worst excuse for entertainment I ever saw in my life.”
“Yes, sir.”
“So you don’t think this Jewett had anything to do with what happened to Bovard?”
“No, I think the barkeep tried to pull something on him like he did with the lieutenant, but the boy got the jump on him.”
“And no sign of the other two?”