In late afternoon they came to Sweetmary, a town named for a copper mine, a town growing out of the mine works and crushing mill high up on the grade: the town beginning from company buildings and reaching down to flatland to form streets, rows of houses and business establishments-Moon remembering it as a settlement of tents and huts, shebangs made of scrap lumber, only a year before-the town growing out of the mine just as the hump ridges of ore tailings came down the grade from the mine shafts. LaSalle was the main street and the good hotel was in Congress. One more night in somebody else's bed. In the morning they'd buy a few provisions at the company store and head due north for home.
During this trip Moon said to his wife, “You're a Katy a lot of ways; I think you'll always look young. But you're not a bashful girl, are you? I think you're more of a Kate than a Katy, and that's meant as a compliment.”
In the morning, lying in the Congress Hotel bed with the sun hot on the windows, he said, “I thought people only did it at night. I mean married people.”
“Who says you have to wait till dark?” She grinned at him and said then, “You mean if you're not married you can do it any time?”
“You do it when you see the chance. I guess that's it,” Moon said. “Married people are busy all day, so it's become the custom to do it at night.”
“Custom,” Kate said. “What's the custom among the Indians? I bet whenever they feel the urge, right? You ever do it outside?”
Moon pretended he had to think to recall and Kate said, “I want to do it outside when we get home.”
“I built us a bed.”
“We'll use the bed. But I want to do it different places. Try different other ways.”
Moon looked at this girl lying next to him, amazed. “What other way is there?”
“I don't know if we can do them in the daylight, but I got some ideas.” She smiled at him and said, “Being married is fun, you know it?”
Moon was getting dressed, buttoning his shirt and looking out the window, when he saw Brendan Early. He said, “Jesus Christ.” Kate came over in her bloomers to look too.
There he was, Moon's best man, walking along the street in a file of jail prisoners carrying shovels and picks, the group dressed in washed-out denim uniforms-the letter “P” stenciled in white on the shirts and pants-being herded along by several armed men on horseback.
“Jesus Christ,” Moon said again, with awe. “What's he done now?”
When Moon found them, the work detail was clearing a drainage ditch about two miles from town, up in the hills back of the mine works. Mounted, he circled and came down from above them to approach Bren Early working with a shovel, in his jail uniform, his new Stetson dirty and sweat-stained. There were four guards with shotguns. The one on the high side, dismounted and sitting about ten yards off in the shade of a cedar stand, heard Moon first and raised his shotgun as he got to his feet.
“Don't come no closer!”
Now Bren Early straightened and was looking this way, leaning on the high end of his shovel. He watched Moon nudging his buckskin down toward them-not knowing Moon's game, so not calling out or saying anything.
“I said don't come no closer!”
This man with the shotgun was the Cochise County Deputy Sheriff for Sweetmary. His name-Moon had learned in town-was R.J. Bruckner. Moon said it now, inquiringly.
“Mr. Bruckner?”
“What do you want?”
There did not appear to be any warmth or cordiality in the man.
He was heavy-set and mean-looking with a big nose and a florid complexion to go with his ugly disposition. Moon would try sounding patient and respectful and see what happened.
He said, “My, it's a hot day to be working, isn't it?”
“You got business with me, state it,” Bruckner said, “or else get your nosey ass out of here.”
My oh my, Moon thought, taking off his hat and resetting it low against the sun, giving himself a little time to adjust and remain calm. The plug of tobacco in his jaw felt dry and he sucked on it a little.
“I wonder if I could have a word with one of your prisoners.”
“God Almighty,” Bruckner said, “get the hell away from here.”
“That good-looking fella there, name of Early. His mama's worried about him,” Moon said, “and sent me out looking.”
“Tell his mama she can visit him at Yuma. That boy's going away for twenty years.”
“Can I ask what he's done?”
“Held up the Benson stage and was caught at it.”
Bren Early, standing in the drainage ditch, was shaking his head slowly, meaning no, he didn't, or just weary of it all.
“Has he been tried already?”
“Hasn't come up yet.”
“Then how do you know he's getting twenty years?”
“It's what I'll recommend to the Circuit Court in Tombstone.”
“Oh,” Moon nodded, showing how agreeable he was. “When is the trial going to be?”
“When I take him down there,” Bruckner said.
“Pretty soon now?”
“When I decide,” Bruckner said, irritated now. “Get the hell away from here 'fore I put you in the ditch with him.”
R.J. Bruckner did not know at that moment-as Moon's hand went to his shirtfront but stopped before going inside the coat-how close he was to being shot.
Back at the Congress Hotel Moon said to his wife, “I have never had the urge like I did right then. It's not good, to be armed and feel like that.”
“But understandable,” Kate said, “What are we gonna do?”
“Stay here another night, if it's all right.”
“Whatever you decide,” his wife said. She loved this man very much, but sometimes his calmness frightened her. She watched him wash and change his shirt and slip on the shoulder holster that held the big Colt's revolver-hidden once his coat was on, but she knew it was there and she knew the man, seeing him again standing at the adobe wall in Sonora.
After supper Mr. and Mrs. Moon sat in rocking chairs on the porch of the Congress Hotel-Kate saying, “This is what you like to do, huh?”-until the Mexican boy came up to them and said in Spanish, “He left.” Moon gave the boy two bits and walked down LaSalle Street to the building with the sign that said DEPUTY SHERIFF-COCHISE COUNTY.
Inside the office he told the assistant deputy on duty he was here to see a prisoner, one Brendan Early and, before the deputy could say anything, laid a five-dollar piece on the man's desk.
“Open your coat,” the deputy said.
Moon handed the man his Colt's, then followed him through a locked door, down an aisle of cells and up a back stairway to a row of cells on the second floor. Moon had never seen a jail this size, able to hold thirty or more prisoners, in a dinky mining town.
“You know why,” Bren Early said, talking to Moon through the bars-the deputy standing back a few paces watching them-“because the son of a bitch is making money off us. The mine company pays him fifty cents a day per man to work on roads and drainage and this horse fart Bruckner puts it in his pocket.”
“You talk to a lawyer?”
“Shit no, not till I go to trial. Listen, there're rummies in here for drunk and disorderly been working months. He thinks I'm a road agent, I could be in here a year before I ever see a courtroom. And then I got to face this other idiot who's gonna point to me and say I tried to rob the stage.”