by Pat Nolan
Apollinara did not want to hear another story of how her husband had been assassinated.
Her oldest son, Dudley, who was known to all as Pepe, had brought the young reporter to their doorstep. She did not show her anger or distress. They were decent folk. They would be polite.
He introduced himself as John Scanly and explained that he had once worked for the El Paso Herald. He claimed that he had been fired for showing too much interest in her husband’s murder.
“I believe there’s a conspiracy of silence surrounding the circumstances of your husband’s death. My original curiosity was piqued when I encountered resistance to anything but a cursory examination of the evidence. Now I’m determined to uncover just who might be behind this plot and expose their motives.” Then, almost as an afterthought, “The results of which I plan to publish as part of a larger book dealing with the life and exploits of the most remarkable lawman of the Southwest.”
They were seated on the verandah of a house on the outskirts of Las Cruces, less than fifty yards from the road to Organ. Abe Falk owned the house they were now living in, generously rented to her at a cut rate. It was his way of demonstrating to the public his benevolence. Apollinara was in no position to be ungracious or even ungrateful. The family had had to move down from the mesa after Cott had foreclosed on the mortgage, an action taken a few days following her husband’s funeral.
The bright early July afternoon was beginning to heat up. Paulita had set a pitcher of lemonade on the little table between her mother and the reporter, stirring the contents with a long wood spoon while her baby brother clung to her pinafore. Pepe, her older brother, was seated on the steps to the verandah, his long legs stretched down to the path that meandered out to the white picket fence where Scanly’s horse and buggy were hitched.
“Isn’t it out of the ordinary that he would be unprepared for trouble or even not on his guard? His shotgun was loaded with birdshot. Clearly, he did not expect to use the weapon offensively or defensively. In my interview with Doctor Fields, he stated that a man as wise in such matters as your husband would not have been in the position he had probably been in, wouldn’t have turned his back had he thought he was in any physical danger.”
Apollinara nodded, lips set in a grim line. She knew her husband’s caution. He had made many enemies over the years as a lawman. But she knew he could be careless, too, especially if he’d had too much to drink. It was then that his normally vigilant self became confused with its own deathless reputation.
“Doctor Fields also informed me that he had taken a thorough survey of the crime scene and found that it appeared there had been another party lying in wait along the trailside. There was evidence of fresh manure and the ground was trampled by boot prints.”
These were things that had been whispered to her countless times. They made her fearful, despondent.
“Also, on the day of your husband’s funeral, the Attorney General and Captain Short with the Territorial Mounted Police were sent down from Santa Fe by Governor Kerry. They confirmed the coroner’s suspicion that there had been a third party. What’s more, they found something he had over-looked, shell casings from a Winchester rifle.”
These details meant nothing now, would change nothing. He had died in a way she always feared that he would. She could not come to grips with the pervasive air of injustice that rumor stirred up. Self-righteousness had been his trait. For all his faults, though, she had never ceased her affection for him, even in the most trying of times, the most recent probably being the worst. She missed his familiar long, gangly, slightly stooped presence in the low ceilinged adobe. His predictability had made her life secure no matter the circumstances.
“I spoke with Captain Short a few days after he had interviewed Brazil. He expressed surprise at the boy’s docile demeanor. This evidently strengthened the suspicion that another party was involved. Clearly, Brazil is not the killer type. My conversations with folks who know him have confirmed that impression. He was never considered a dangerous man. As I was present at the preliminary hearing, I can testify that my sense of Brazil is similar to the prevailing opinion. He is a follower not a leader, and he is beholding to Mr. Cott who plainly holds the leash.
“Among other information that would point to collusion, I have come across the fact that Adams never had cattle to bring up from Mexico and graze on the disputed property. There was never any herd nor was there ever a ranch in Oklahoma, their purported final destination. Nor did Adams ever have any intention of buying Brazil’s goats! Why then would Adams and Brazil concoct such a fiction if not for some dark purpose?” Scanly paused to judge Apollinara’s comprehension of what he had been telling her. He took her grim silence as permission to continue. “I would also question whether either of them had the cunning or intelligence to devise such a scheme.”
Paulita could not help but continue to stir the lemonade, as she eavesdropped on the adults, the ice making a musical sound striking the side of the pewter pitcher.
“Now I don’t know if the name Joe Miller is familiar to you, Mrs. Garrett, but it belongs to a notorious assassin who is believed to be part of this conspiracy and may even be the actual triggerman.”
“Don’t you mean Jim Miller?” Pepe stirred from his perch on the steps, stood up, and stretched his long legs.
“Jim Miller. Did I say Joe? I meant to say Jim. I was informed by a Texas Ranger, a friend of your pa’s, that he had interviewed the undertaker from El Paso who happened to be in Las Cruces that very day and had seen Miller in what can only be described as a conspiratorial conversation with none other than Mr. O’Lee! Also. . . .”
Apollinara excused herself. “It is a beautiful day, Señor, but perhaps a little too warm for me. My dark clothing is too welcoming of the light.”
Scanly rose to his feet. “Ma’am?”
“But please, stay seated, be our guest, enjoy the day.” She stood, stoic, dignified. The man lowered his eyes. If he had been homelier, he could have passed for a young Ashton Upson. There was the same love of the sound of his own voice. There was the same self-pride, but then all men had some of that. Full of himself, his insinuation could never be wrong. “Paulita, serve Mr. Scanly more lemonade, por favor.” Then she disappeared behind the summer door into the dark, cooler house.
Scanly turned to Pepe who had moved to sit in his mother’s rocker. “As I was saying, while in El Paso, I met with an informant who would most certainly be privy to these types of details. What he told me indicates a much wider conspiracy. A prominent rancher is involved, and who that might be is fairly obvious. As well, so is a well-known attorney who, in my estimation, is the only one with the intelligence to craft such a devious plan.”
Scanly got no argument from Pepe. “From what I’ve been able to learn, a meeting was held at the Regent Hotel that included Miller and the other two in which Miller agreed to do the killing. Coincidentally, that meeting took place in the very same hotel in which years earlier your pa met with the Governor of the Territory and agreed to take on the investigation of Jennings and his boy. And it included at least one of the same participants!”
Wide-eyed, Pepe shook his head. “Now don’t that beat all.”
“The twist to the plot,” Scanly continued, confident that he had his listener hooked, “and which I do believe the lawyer provided, was that someone would be furnished to admit to the shooting and someone else would testify that it was self-defense. That would be Adams and Brazil.”
“That copperhead! That snake!”
“Adams claims that your pa threatened Brazil. Now, from what I’ve heard about Mr. Garrett, he was not one to make idle threats. The consensus is that had he made the threat, he could have shot Brazil from where he sat in the buggy rather than after stepping down.”
Pepe’s mouth spread sideways in a smirk. “Now ain’t that the truth. If he’d figured for a scrape, he’d a taken his sixer with him. But he didn’t reckon that he needed to get rough with Brazil because he had a lawyer up in Santa Fe who swore we could get him off the land legally. Besides, he wasn’t any more scared of Brazil than he was of a jackrabbit!”
“My suspicions are all but confirmed at this point. There was more at stake than that hunk of overgrazed rangeland. There was indeed a plot to murder your father.”
An explosion sounded in the direction of Las Cruces, like a shot, but less distinct, hollow. Then another. A beige cloud advanced up the road toward them accompanied by shrieks, shouts, laughter and the barks of dogs. The horse tied to the fence post shied.
“It’s a motor carriage!” Paulita ran to the gate, her baby brother waddling behind her. The machine swayed and jogged from side to side, navigating the ruts in the wagon road, chased by outraged dogs and the town’s children. Scanly’s horse reared, shaking and tipping the buggy trying to free itself as the dust and noise rattled past. Seated high on the bench of the contraption were what appeared to be a man and a woman, he with a black hat held on his head with a chinstrap and she with a wide brimmed chapeau held in place with a yard of chiffon scarf. Both wore goggles. The woman waved at Paulita and her brother gaping through the pickets.
“They must be going up to Cott’s spread for the big barbeque.” Pepe said after the machine had gone from sight and he had settled back in the rocker.
“That’s right! O’Lee has been elected to the Territorial Legislature. I sincerely hope that that is the only thing they are celebrating.”
Pepe grunted and then noticed his mother had returned and stood to give her his seat. Apollinara made no indication that she wanted to sit. She had been drawn to view the noise and novelty as well.
Scanly addressed her. “There is a mystery about this tragedy, Mrs. Garrett, and it is my aim to try and bring it to light. If you will allow me.”
Apollinara nodded from the doorway more in resignation than agreement. There were those who sought to benefit from the misfortune of others. This young man was no different. She could almost hear Ash Upson saying so himself. “There are those who kill and get a reputation, and there are those who write about them, for a similar notoriety.” It was the code of men, of the West.
“I am the recipient of an anonymous note from someone who claims to have been a friend of Mr. Garrett. In it, the author advises me to steer clear of probing too deeply into the matter, for, and I quote, ‘I know the Organ Mountain bunch and Pat got himself killed trying to find out who killed Jennings and you will get killed trying to find out who killed Garrett.’
“Ma’am, I have been in contact with more than one person who has told me that your husband was gathering new evidence regarding the White Sands murders, that Gil Leland had told him or was going to tell him everything, and that he was writing a book about it. Would there be notes from these interviews or rough drafts regarding this matter among his effects?”
Apollinara closed her eyes as if to gather strength. Had her husband and Ash not written their book, perhaps things would have been different, that no-account boy would have faded from memory. Instead, that one event overshadowed his entire life. He was remembered only as the man who shot Billy, the Kid.
When she reopened her eyes, she spoke, slowly, firmly, “My husband was a man of few words, Mr. Scanly. There is no book.”
This novel is the culmination of a youthful ambition. It pays homage to the many sagas of the old West I devoured as a young reader, the countless B Westerns I watched on Saturday morning TV, the yards of paperback Westerns I burned through as an adolescent and as a young adult, the prime-time horse operas available to me almost nightly in the late fifties and sixties. I was smitten with Western lore and wanted to contribute to it. It was a subject that always caught my attention as was the case when I came upon Leon Metz’s biography of Patrick F. Garrett known the world over as the man who shot Billy, The Kid. Professor Metz’s thorough account presented Garrett as the quintessential lawman of the old West. One of the gems uncovered in my reading of the biography was that Garrett and his friend, Ashton Upson, had written and self-published a version of that crucial event entitled The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid, with Upson, an ex-newspaper man, providing ‘biographical’ information and Garrett, the uncluttered directness of a police report in his pursuit of Bonney. As a result, some three decades ago, I sat down at my typewriter and set out to write a novel based on the life of a legendary lawman, a life overshadowed by one significant incident, the killing of William Bonney.
Over the years numerous version of my manuscript, mostly typewritten, have languished in a drawer or gathered dust on my desk and to which I was drawn, on occasion, to reread and rethink the presentation of the material. In the process, a novel took shape, one that began as a bare bones cinematic adaptation of a biography and emerged as something more meaningful: the story of the relationship between two men, one garrulous, the other taciturn, the Mutt and Jeff of the old Southwest, and the tradition of storytelling and authoring of ‘true’ accounts. The life of this legendary lawman encompassed more than just that one episode, however. Garrett’s own violent death in the early years of the Twentieth Century seemed to punctuate the passing of an era. There is a resonance to the other particulars of his life as a lawman that belong to the saga of the Southwest.
On The Road To Las Cruces is a work of fiction tethered loosely to historical fact as any Western history buff will be quick to discern. The detail and color of the late Nineteenth Century Southwest presented here is due largely to the intrepid historians, both amateur and professional, whose bailiwick is that particular era. An author can feel comfortable writing about his contemporaries, but to travel to the past takes the expertise of those for whom the diligent tracking of detail is all consuming and, in many cases, a just and only reward. I am fortunate to benefit from such carefully researched knowledge. The quasi-fictional landscape that came into being in my imagination would have been noticeably paler had it not been for the writing of such excellent authors, storytellers, and historians as Mari Sandoz, J. Frank Dobie, Leon Metz, Owen Wister, Charlie Siringo, Jon Tuska, and Colin Rickards, to name but a few. It goes without saying that Garrett and Upson’s collaboration was invaluable.
In this work of fact-based fiction, I have allowed myself license to rename, upend, and fabricate certain details to hurry along the story. The inaccuracies, the anachronisms, the inventions are entirely mine. What is related on the road to Las Cruces is as much a retelling of some history as it is how such a retelling might come about, and is represented in the manner of a tall tale, the deadpan details of a crime story, melodrama, and the makings of a conspiracy to murder. The subtle hyperbole of the Western storyteller is a joy to hear, masking in understatement devilish wit and intelligence. It was my intention to evoke that tradition.
Pat Nolan, Monte Rio, 2011
“When we rode up to within half a mile of the shack, I knew we had them trapped. I divided the men up in two groups, and led my boys, Tip and Barney, up an arroyo to where we were able to get in close.”
“He turned and reeled back into the adobe. Billy Wilson called out. I could tell it was him by that Yankee accent. He said we’d killed Charlie Bowdre and that he was sending him out. I replied that he could come out with his hands up.”
“The problem is that my name on it says I wrote it.”
Perhaps it was the black and white cowhide vest trimmed with red piping that seemed so outlandish. The Montana peak of the Stetson’s crown was all the latest rage among the younger range hands and it did not surprise him that Brazil sported his in the same manner. The red flannel shirt was a little hard on the eyes and the stiff Levi’s pants looked brand new blue stuffed into the tops of his boots, a pointy toed, riding heel variety. And the big blood bay was enough horse for any man. Troubling too might have been the revolver the young man had strapped to his waist, but that also appeared part of a preposterous affectation. In his slightly inebriated state, the old man had the feeling that he was watching the final hand of a card game, but from a distance, a fuzzy distance.
“I don’t care for them. They’re just a passing fancy. They will never catch on. The rich folk will use them to parade around. You can’t go any distance in the damn things without them breaking down or getting stuck and needing a horse or mule to haul them out or needing to feed on that stink water!”
He and Black had gone out to the Cott Ranch in Black’s buckboard. Jorge had followed on horseback. Not far from the ranch house, he had left the buckboard and horse with Black and he and Jorge had gone on foot down around the bluff, following the path to the rear of the garden. They had quietly tripped the latch to the gate and quickly crossed the red tile patio to the open kitchen door. Billy Reed, a tall, burly young man with a crop of dirty blonde hair, had his back to them. He had been helping Shirley Cott in the kitchen. He had leveled his Colt at the large young man, asking, “Are you Billy Reed?” The young man had turned slowly and nodded yes. Informed of the warrant for his arrest, he had nodded his assent and extended his wrists giving the indication that he would go quietly.
The old man would not show his profound disappointment. He managed a laugh though it was an empty one. “It makes no difference if you do or not.” He stood up, a little unsteadily, and dismounted from the buggy, leaning his shotgun against the bench. “I’ll get you off that land one way or another.” He turned his back to the two men, saying, “Think I’ll water a little mesquite myself,” and walked to the opposite side of the road. He was livid, the very notion that the deal he had counted on to reverse his fortunes had gone sour was almost more than he could stand. His legs felt weak, his gut churned, and it was not just from the aguadiente. His ears were ringing, his breathing labored. Again, Ash’s voice insinuated itself. It was as if he were calling his name, but from a far distance. He let himself go at the side of the road. The stub of cigar in his other hand had gone out. It was not worth firing up again. It was done. He tossed it aside. He was done.
The facts of the investigation had been straightforward. A posse had been assembled soon after the postman had alerted the family to what Jennings had told him. By then, the Colonel had been overdue, long enough to cause concern.
The posse had then followed the horsemen’s trail east toward Wildy Well where they knew that there was a line shack used by O’Lee’s drovers. Dog Canyon, O’Lee’s ranch house, lay just beyond. At one point, the tracks of three riders had diverged, one going southeast in the direction of Wildy Well, and the other two towards Dog Canyon. The posse had split up also. Two men had gone after the lone rider, five followed after the two headed northeast. The remaining searchers had returned to Mesilla with the wagon.
Outrage had swept through the Rio Grande valley. A two thousand-dollar reward and full immunity from prosecution had been offered to any of the accomplices who would come forward to give evidence against the principals.
“What with the Governor’s offer and the potential of collecting the reward, I was sorely tempted. I know that there was talk of how I rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. But the people who hired me knew that I would get the job done no matter who my enemies were.
“By the time I was finally appointed Sheriff, I had enough evidence against O’Lee, and his accomplices, Gil Leland and Jim Mcann, that I felt I could secure an indictment from the grand jury. I was not going to be bullied by any Texans and I made no secret my intentions. I had the authority to arrest and bring them to trial. My case was ready to be made.
The old man shook his head. “That game was played to a draw. But it wasn’t because of George Kerry’s lack of trying to precipitate a fracas. At first, they were all worried that I would start some kind of gunplay though of course they tried not to show it. I was heeled, I had my .44 Colt, and I could see by the plow handle stuck in his belt that O’Lee was as well. I calmly called for a fresh deck and had Tiptoe deal me in. The first hand I drew was a three, jack, and an ace showing, with a deuce in my hand. I drew the other jack on my last card. O’Lee, Kerry, Falk folded with Tobey paying to get a look at it. The pair of tens showing was all that he had.
“Rudolph.”
“The same. In fact, that’s where I first met the Colonel. Even then, he had a reputation that made Bonney look like a pipsqueak by comparison. Al Jennings was a hardheaded, no-holds-barred politician. There’s a story about him that while he as a member of the Texas legislature he fought a pistol duel with a political rival. He got the worst of it and was wounded in the shoulder but he managed to get to his horse and ride off.
There was a special hatred for Mexicans among Texans, and O’Lee as well as the two other men implicated in Jennings’ murder, Jim Mcann and Gil Leland, were prime examples. 
Curly O’Lee was a Texas range rat, a mongrel breed all his own. Cocky, brass, and ruthless, he’d had the ambition to be a cattle baron, and the determination to attempt it. He was built close to the ground and he walked with the unsteady gait of a man used to letting his horse do it for him. Wiry, with long gangling arms stretched, no doubt, from a lifetime of roping cows, he looked like a saddle bum down from the line shack after six months. A pale moon face topped the slightly stooped shoulders. The crooked toothy smile and pale blue eyes masked a sadistic killer. His big sandy moustache seemed to float under a red puff of nose. He had what the natives called a “Yankee face”. Red, white and blue. Whenever without the big white Stetson on his head, he combed the thinning wisps of hair from one temple to the other to cover the obviously barren terrain. This was the picture of O’Lee he remembered.
“Now you’d think that a man who was implicated in the disappearance and murder of a prominent citizen and his son would not be your likely candidate for a seat in the Santa Fe Legislature, would you? 
“Obviously you ain’t the only one. He is made out to be a respected businessman now, but he murdered Jennings and his son. That fact will never change for me. True, the jury acquitted him, Leland, and Macann, but the jury was intimidated by the ruffians and Texas cowboys O’Lee imported up to Hillsboro and billeted in the only hotel in town. Hell, the jury had to sleep in the hayloft at the livery! It was a jamboree up there. People came from all over the Southwest, pitched their tents, and lined up every day hoping to get in to see the trial. The jury got wind of what some of the tougher O’Lee guns were planning if they even considered finding their boss guilty. But he didn’t need them. His lawyer, Abe Falk, destroyed the prosecution’s case. The attorney for the Territory was a political hack from Santa Fe who could have cared less who O’Lee had killed. He had been sent to make sure that Falk, the Democrat, did not win. Everyone knew that. What had been a clear-cut case of kidnap, murder, and conspiracy was made hostage to political maneuvering. What I had believed to be right and the law suddenly shifted in the political wind like it was no more than the smoke off this cigar!”
Ash had admonished him against politics more than once. He had had his ambition to sit in Santa Fe, but Ash had told him, “You’re too upright a fellow to be mingling with those old foxes. 
Santa Fe was being pressured from both Washing-ton and the local citizenry to resolve the case and bring the criminals to justice. The Sheriff of Dona Ana County at the time was doing nothing because of his fear of O’Lee and the fact that they were both Democrats. Everyone knew or said they knew who the guilty parties were. O’Lee’s confederates tried to blame it on disgruntled Mexicans. That was highly unlikely as Jennings received much of his support from that segment of the population. The most widely accepted version was that O’Lee had done the deed or had hired someone to do it.
Ash had the habit of adding flourishes to the facts. He, on the other hand, felt confident only to tell the facts the way he had experienced them. 
Apollinara woke Paulita after midnight. When her husband had not returned by nightfall, her full fear had come to the fore. She could not just sit and do nothing. She set about hitching Old Jupiter to the buckboard. Then, leaving the younger children in the care of their Navajo cook, she and Paulita, wrapped in blankets against the blistering cold of the predawn mesa, set off down into the pitch-black canyon.
It took them hours to finally arrive at Swanson’s in Organ, old Jupe familiarly picking out the trail but slowly against Apollinara’s tight rein. Her eyes had searched the dark for any sign of her husband although she was certain that she would not find him there. She murmured prayers all the while.
The front door opened and Swanson’s wife, Lou, came out onto the porch. “What is it, Polly? I thought he was off the firewater. Don’t tell me he’s on another one of his jags. I don’t envy you, dear. Come on inside, I’m just about to start breakfast.” She helped Apollinara down from the buckboard. “Don’t worry, one of his chums has probably got him over to the boarding house to let him sleep it off.” She put her arm around Apollinara and led her inside.
The old man found the matches inside his hatband. His hand had fished out a fresh cigar from the inside pocket of his coat. The match head flared with the flick of his thumbnail and was quickly brought up to the tube of tobacco. Soon puffs of smoke drifted out from under the brim of his dark sombrero. 
The old man reflected in a cloud of smoke. He had watched the whole affair develop in the pages of the El Paso newspaper, too. He had been living in Uvalde then. Apparently Jennings was in possession of evidence that Curly O’Lea, the Sacramento Mountain rancher, and his Dog Canyon bunch were stealing cattle, and had filed charges against him. But it was all politics. O’Lea had aligned himself with a Democrat, Abe Falk, and by going after O’Lea, Jennings was hoping to embarrass Falk and his Messila Democrats. Ash and he had spent many an hour discussing the moves the politicians were making in their bid for power in the Southwest. Ash had foreseen Jennings’ disappearance. “He who lives by the ballot dies by the bullet,” he had cynicized. One way or the other, they had both agreed, Jennings was up against two formidable opponents. Falk was a brilliant lawyer, and O’Lea, a ruthless cattleman.
He had been an honest man all his life. He had lived by the laws he enforced. That was something he understood and which was understood about him. Given the job, he would execute it with efficiency and integrity. 
“Certainly. I read all about the desperate goings-on that took place there. Cattle rustling, counterfeiting, gunplay, murders, The Lincoln County War, Billy, the Kid.”
—Perry O’Dickle, chief scribe 
Deep in the redwood wilds along the Corkscrew River, someone is shooting neighborhood dogs. The year is 1985 and Lee Malone, former fashion model, queen of the runways from Paris to Milan, once dubbed the most beautiful woman in the world, now a part-time reporter for The Corkscrew County Grapevine, is looking for a story to sink her teeth into. When Lee finds the owner of Kelly’s Seaside Resort brutally murdered, it leads her on an adventure that includes a mysterious gray van, another murder, extortion, pornography, sex slavery, and a shadowy organization of militant feminists known as SAPHO. In the process, Lee Malone’s notorious past catches up with her. 
Apollinara gnawed her lower lip, hands clasped over the small Bible resting on top of the yarn basket in her lap. She stopped rocking and went over the scene of her husband’s departure again.
The old man watched the smoke rise from his cigar. Whenever he thought of Indians, the pile of moccasins he had dumped at Pete Maxwell’s feet came to mind.
Whenever Shelton would take his hat off, his thin red hair stood straight up like the flame on the tip of a Lucifer. 
Skinner was a dirty job by any standards. Thinking back, the kid didn’t know what he was getting himself into. Or had he got the kid into it? 
business. Out on the range it was just you, your knife, and the carcass. The hunters would be scouting the river bottoms and the only way you could keep track of them was to remember the direction of the sound of their rifle fire. The kid hadn’t picked up the skills as quickly as he had anticipated and often times someone from the party would have to go out and find him, lost among the bluffs, wandering in circles. Shelton said he prayed for some Comanche to lift his scalp and put the poor bastard out of his misery.
He had lost just about everything he had ever had. He was tired of losing. This snoozer, this goat-boy, would not prevail, no matter what the court had decided. He would not lose this one.
He coughed a dry cough and it reminded him of Ash. Ash was perhaps his greatest loss. He had grown to depend on Ash’s humor and irascibility to balance the grimness of his own turn of mind. He valued his old friend’s rather exaggerated view of life, how the boring and dull events of every day were the foundations of what he liked to call ‘myth.” He could remember how all his petty little worries would disappear after he and Ash had spent time jawing and sipping, sipping and jawing. He was also reminded of how dimly Polly viewed this pastime, and how Ash, a regular Sunday dinner guest when they lived in Roswell, had to endure her steely glares. “Ash and his ideas,” she would mutter after his friend had fallen asleep in the old wing-backed chair in front of the fireplace. When Ash was dying, though, she had prepared the extra room at the Uvalde ranch for him, and had seen to his every comfort. Ash’s death was a slow one. His liver was going, but despite the pain, he still liked to spin a good yarn.
Dime Pulp 