Brian Garfield by Tripwire

didn’t want to get anywhere near that, he’d had enough of jails in Ehrenburg. He poled the ferry-raft up onto the eastern bank of the river in the darkness a quarter mile north of the town. “I get off here,” he said. “You can get this raft to Yuma by yourselves or you can walk.”
    The woman gave the raft her dubious attention. “We shall walk, I think.”
    The little girl was watching them. She hadn’t said a word for quite some time and that was unusual if not unique.
    Boag helped them unload the few possessions they had salvaged from their wagon. He still had the old Spanish percussion rifle which he considered a moment before he proffered it to the woman. “You can sell this for the price of a meal and a telegraph wire to your people in Tuolumne.”
    â€œYou have been kind.”
    â€œYou will find help in Yuma, it is a big town.”
    The river picked the raft off the bank and moved it out. It spun slowly into the muddy flow.
    â€œYou two go on ahead,” Boag said.
    â€œAnd what of you?”
    â€œI got things to do.”
    The little girl snatched at Boag’s hand. “My name is Carmen.”
    The woman snorted. “She dreams. Her name is Pilar, Señor. ”
    â€œI wish to be called Carmen.”
    â€œAll right Carmen.” Boag managed a bit of a smile before he pulled loose of her grip. “ Hasta luego. ”
    â€œ Adiós, ” the woman said, and smiled showing the gaps between her teeth. “Go with God, our good friend.”
    The woman started off laden with her things, the long rifle sticking out above her shoulder. The little girl didn’t stir and finally the woman came back and rearranged her load to free a hand, took the girl by the arm and pulled her away.
    Boag watched them fade into the dissolving darkness against the lights of Yuma. When they were out of sight he began to limp along toward town.

chapter three
    1
    He dusted himself off as well as he could and decided he probably wouldn’t draw any more attention than any other black drifter on the night streets of Yuma. He was clean enough; he’d bathed several times the past few days, in the river with fire ashes and grease for soap. It was the clothes that were bad: ripped here and there, caked with river mud at the cuffs. He’d have to get clothes. It wasn’t vanity, it was the knowledge that they arrested you on appearance more than anything else and if you looked reasonably prosperous they’d leave you be. It was the ragged army uniform that had betrayed him in Ehrenburg, there were too many mustered-out Buffalo soldiers in Arizona right now and the whole Territory knew they were broke, jobless and vagrant. Nobody trusted them.
    Walking into Yuma by way of dark side streets, Boag added up his requirements. Two pounds of iron and a holster and cartridges for it. Clothes. A water canteen, maybe a rope; a hat. A clasp knife surely. A horse, blanket, bridle, saddle. Scabbard and rifle and cartridges. At a minimum that would do it; everything else could come off the land, although it would save him time later if he found a pack of jerky and tinned food to carry along.
    He toted up the value in dollars and knew he was nowhere near cutting it with his two gold eagles. A handgun, a decent .44-40 or .45, was twelve dollars right there and that was more than half his stake; a repeating rifle would run twenty all by itself.
    You could stop and earn the money doing day labor but it would take months.
    Well you could steal a horse, maybe a horse with a traveler’s pack on it, and then you could steal guns and clothes here and there. But then you’d have half a dozen victims looking for you along with the sheriffs.
    There was one other way and it looked better than the others.
    Boag stopped in an alley and worked his boots off and got the two small gold coins out. Put them in his pocket and felt around to make sure there wasn’t a hole in