by Matt Braun
The cabin was crude as a wolf’s den. A rough-hewn table, with a couple of homemade chairs, occupied the center of the room. Skillets and cast-iron pots were scattered randomly beside an open fireplace. In the corner was a washstand, and directly above it were shelves stacked with tinned goods. Along the far wall, wedged into a corner, was a double bunk. On the upper bunk was a bare mattress; the lower bunk was covered with rumpled blankets and a single pillow. The wall nearby was draped with clothes hung on pegs; saddles and a motley collection of gear were piled on the floor. The right front wall, immediately beside the entrance, was not visible. The window angle created a blind spot from the door to the far corner. A lamp on the table bathed the whole room in flickering shadows.
There was a man seated at the table. He held a deck of cards and spread out before him was a hand of solitaire. He was swarthy, with splayed features and dark hair and a drooping mustache. Heavily muscled, with a thick neck and powerful shoulders, he had the look of a bruiser. His eyes appeared yellow, almost amber, in the lamplight. A jagged scar traced the line of his jawbone.
The man and the rogues’ gallery description were a perfect match. His name was Mike Cassidy.
Starbuck jammed on his hat and pulled the Colt. Stooping low, he ducked under the window and moved to the door. He drew a deep breath and gently thumbed back the hammer on the sixgun. Then he aimed a savage kick at the latch. The door burst open and slammed inward with a splintering groan. He charged through and halted just inside the room. His arm leveled, the Colt steady as a rock.
“You’re under arrest, Cassidy!”
Cassidy took the news with unshaken aplomb. He riffled three cards off the top of the deck and laid a red nine on a black ten. Then he looked up and smiled.
“Evenin’,” he said almost idly. “Been expectin’ you.”
“You heard me!” Starbuck pressed him. “You’re wanted in Utah—on a hanging charge!”
“Hanging!” Cassidy repeated, amused. “Damned if that don’t beat all.”
“You got a choice,” Starbuck said tightly. “Come along peaceable or I’ll shoot you where you sit!”
“Wanna bet?”
A doubt suddenly struck Starbuck deep in the pit of his stomach. Something was wrong here, all ass-backwards to what he’d expected. He felt a strong misgiving about killing the man in coldblood. Yet Cassidy seemed to be inviting death.
“One last warning!” he said harshly. “On your feet or you’re a dead man!”
Cassidy gave him a strange grin. “Take a look behind you, Mr. Smith. You’re liable to change your mind.”
“Forget the tricks and do like I say!”
“It’s no trick.” Cassidy glanced past him, and nodded. “Tell the man, Butch.”
“Drop it! Pronto!”
Starbuck went stock-still. The voice was very close, and he realized someone had been hidden behind the door. Understanding flooded over him as though his ears had come unplugged. He’s been suckered into a trap!
“I ain’t gonna tell you again, mister!”
The voice was sharp, commanding. With great care, Starbuck lowered the hammer on his sixgun and dropped it. Cassidy threw back his head and roared with laughter. Then he kicked his chair aside and moved around the table.
“You got balls,” he said, halting a pace away. “Yessir, you shorely do! I about halfway thought you wouldn’t show.”
“Guess you got the word,” Starbuck said, not asking a question. “Houk and Devoe make pretty fair messenger boys.”
“Yeah, they do,” Cassidy admitted readily. “Course, I wouldn‘t’ve been caught with my drawers down no-how. I knowed you was comin’ long before you got here.”
“You—!”
“Shut your trap!” Cassidy’s mood suddenly turned sullen. “You just speak when you’re spoke to! Savvy?”
“Whatever you say.”
“Awright, let’s start with something simple. Like, for instance … what’s your name?”
“Arapahoe Smith.”
“Don’t be a wiseass,” Cassidy growled. “Your real name?”
“Arapahoe Smith.”
“You’re not listenin’!” Cassidy jabbed a finger into his chest. “We’ll try another one. Who d’you work for?”
“The law,” Starbuck lied with a straight face. “I’m a U.S. deputy marshal.”
“Horseshit!” Cassidy exploded. “Who hired you? Who sent you here?”
“The U.S. marshal, Utah Territory.”
Cassidy’s face mottled with anger. His gaze shifted to whoever stood beside the door. Starbuck saw the look, caught an undercurrent of something unspoken, and suddenly understood. He braced himself too late.
A pistol barrel cracked him across the skull. His eyes spun out of focus and pinwheels of light flashed through his head. Then Cassidy stepped forward and buried a gnarled fist in his stomach. His mouth popped open in a roaring whoosh of breath and he folded at the waist. Cassidy punched him in the jaw and he went down as though he’d been poleaxed. The whole right side of his head turned numb, and the brassy taste of blood filled his mouth. He gasped for air, his lungs on fire.
Cassidy dropped to one knee, grabbed a handful of hair. “Gimme the straight dope or you’re gonna get more of the same! Who hired you?”
“Nobody.”
Lifting his head, Cassidy drove a hard chopping right into his mouth. “What’s your name?”
“Arapahoe—”
A paralyzing blow split his eyebrow. “Who sent you here?”
“I told—”
“You ain’t told me nothin’!” Cassidy shouted. “Now smarten up and let’s hear it!”
Starbuck shook his head like a man who had walked into cobwebs. His vision was muzzy and showery spots leaped before his eyes. Blood oozed down over his cheekbone and an ugly cut split his upper lip. His mouth moved, the words fragmented.
“Go … to … hell …”
Wordlessly, with a sort of methodical stoicism, Cassidy resumed the beating. The blows were measured and brutal, delivered with cold ferocity, like a butcher working over a side of beef. When he finished, Starbuck’s face was a bloody mask, no longer a handsome sight. Cassidy still gripped a handful of hair, and he wrenched Starbuck’s head back with a vicious twist. Then he leaned forward, eyeball to eyeball.
“One last time”—his mouth zigzagged in a cruel grimace—“who hired you?”
There was a moment of leaden silence. Starbuck’s eyes were glazed, and he retched, spitting blood. He swallowed and gagged, and coughed a wad of bright reddish phlegm. At last he groaned, slowly regained his senses, and tried to focus through swollen eyelids. A crazed smile touched his lips and froth bubbled at the corner of his mouth.
“Kiss my ass.”
Cassidy stared at him with stunned disbelief. Then his eyes flashed and his expression turned murderous. He pulled a Colt forty-four from the holster on his hip and eared the hammer to full-cock. Then he pressed the snout of the pistol against Starbuck’s temple. His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Talk!” His voice was wild, homicidal. “Talk or I’ll blow your head off.”
Chapter Nine
A sinister stillness settled over the cabin. For a time neither of the men moved, and between them there was a sense of suppressed violence. Cassidy’s eyes were hard and feral, and he stared down the gun barrel with a look of cold menace. At last, with a savage oath, he dropped Starbuck on the floor.
“Stupid sonovabitch!”
Staring down a moment, he suddenly turned and walked away. He lowered the hammer on his pistol and shoved it into the holster. His face was ocherous and he moved to the washstand, where he snatched a whiskey bottle from the overhead shelves. He pulled the cork and took a long swig, shuddering as the liquor hit bottom. Then he stalked to the table and lowered himself heavily into a chair. His expression was black and angry bafflement.
Starbuck felt dazed, punchy. His head buzzed and the room seemed to swirl in a dizzying motion. He ached all o
ver, as though he’d been run through an ore crusher and torn apart. He levered himself up on one elbow and blinked several times, struggling to clear his head. From some distant corner of his mind, a thought surfaced and swam forward through a murky haze. He groped with it a moment, muddled and confused; then there was a slow dawning. Still, his mind was dull and sluggish, and he couldn’t quite comprehend what seemed a vital enigma. He wondered why Cassidy hadn’t killed him.
A hand scooped his sixgun off the floor. He glanced up and saw a young boy, somewhere in his middle teens. The youngster was of medium height and slim build, with a blunt pug nose and a square jaw. His hair was like a shock of wheat, and an unruly cowlick spilled down over his forehead. He wore rough work clothes and mule-eared boots, and a long-barreled Colt Peacemaker was strapped on his hip. Yet there was laughter in his eyes and a clownish smile, something of the prankster. He looked at once full-grown and still very much a kid.
The youngster stuffed the sixgun in the waistband of his trousers and backed away. He kept one eye on Starbuck, but his attention was clearly directed to Cassidy. He moved to the table and straddled a chair. His face clouded with a thoughtful frown, almost like a child toying with some new and inexplicable riddle. He sat watching the older man for a time. Then he hunched forward, elbows locked over the top of the chair. His voice was husky, surprisingly deep.
“Mike?”
“What?”
“You gonna bite my head off if I ask you something?”
“How’ll I know till you ask?”
“Well …” A beat of hesitation, then he rushed on. “What stopped you? Holy moly, I figured you was gonna kill him deader’n a doornail!”
“I come goddam close!” Cassidy’s eyes blazed. “I never wanted to kill nobody so bad in my whole life!”
“Then why’d you let him off?”
“Aww hell, Butch!” Cassidy grunted sharply. “I couldn’t kill him! Don’t you see that would’ve spoilt any chance I got?”
“Any chance for what?”
“Lookee here,” Cassidy explained with weary patience. “Somebody hired him, didn’t they? Somebody paid him blood money and sent him here to stop my clock. Am I right or not?”
“Yeah,” Butch said eagerly. “And—?”
“So he’s a hired gun, plain and simple!”
“All the more reason to kill him.”
“No, you dope!” Cassidy took a slug from the whiskey bottle, wiped his mouth. “How’ll I know who hired him lessen he talks?”
“Oooo!” Butch’s mouth ovaled in wonder. “Dead men tell no tales—right?”
“On the button,” Cassidy acknowledged. “Wasn’t for that, I would’ve shot him the minute he come through the door.”
“Only one trouble, Mike.”
“What’s that?”
“How you gonna make him talk?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, look at him!” Butch jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Cripes sake! What more could you do?”
“Bastard’s tough, awright.” Cassidy laughed without humor. “I’ve whipped lots of men, but I never saw one take that kind of punishment. Did you hear him? Told me to kiss his ass!”
“Guess you gotta admire his sand.”
“Either that or he’s dumber’n a dog turd.”
“Whichever, it’s six of one and half a dozen of another.”
“How so?”
“You still gotta figure a way to make him talk.”
“Ain’t it a fact?” Cassidy spat on his large-knuckled hands and rubbed them together. “Maybe I’ll try a little Injun torture. That’d cure his lockjaw—real quick!”
“Wooiee!” Butch grinned, his teeth flashing like rows of dice. “You never told me you knowed anything about Injun torture!”
“A trick or two.” Cassidy gave him a catlike smile. “Come to think of it, I reckon it’d be plumb fittin’.”
“I don’t get you.”
“Arapahoe Smith!” Cassidy jeered. “Anybody that takes a dog-eater’s name ought to be treated like one!”
“Now that you mention it,” Butch wondered aloud, “what made you think that wasn’t his real name?”
“Simple!” Cassidy snorted. “A hired gun wouldn’t use his own handle at Hole-in-the-Wall.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause it’d be like signin’ his own death warrant. Oncet word got around, he wouldn’t live ten minutes! Somebody would kill him figgerin’ he was out to kill them.”
“Maybe.” Butch puzzled on it a moment. “Or maybe he’s what he says he is … a lawman.”
“Possible,” Cassidy conceded grudgingly. “I’d tend to doubt it, though.”
“Well, he sure as the devil had his facts straight. All that stuff about Utah and you being wanted on a hanging charge. How do you explain that?”
“I dunno.” Cassidy looked bemused. “Tell you the truth, the whole goddamn thing don’t make no rhyme nor reason.”
“Say he was a marshal.” Butch leaned forward, earnest. “Seems to me that’d spell it out in spades. It’s only natural the law would come after you sooner or later.”
“Nope, it won’t wash!” Cassidy announced hotly. “There ain’t a lawdog alive that’d poke his nose into Hole-in-the-Wall. We got ’em buffaloed—the whole kit-’n’-caboodle—and that’s gospel fact!”
“Yeah, but you said it yourself. Nobody ever took that kind of beating and kept his mouth wired shut. Maybe he’s one lawman who don’t scare so easy.”
“He’s a hired gun!” Cassidy spat angrily. “Don’t make no nevermind what he says. He come here to kill me—and that’s that!”
Butch’s eyes skittered away, then he cleared his throat. “So what do we do now?”
“I ain’t sure,” Cassidy noted bitterly. “His kind are a dime a dozen, cheaper’n dirt! There’ll be another one after him and then another one and another one. Once it starts, it don’t end.”
“What don’t end?”
“Somebody wants me dead!” Cassidy’s face congealed into a scowl. “I gotta learn that somebody’s name and personally arrange his funeral. Otherwise, he’ll keep on sendin’ hired guns till one of ’em gets the job done.”
“No doubt about it,” Butch agreed. “Somebody aims to put you six feet under.”
“Only one salvation to the whole thing. Somebody else don’t want me dead. Except for him, I’d be pushin’ up daisies right now!”
“Wonder who he is?”
“Wisht to hell I knew.” Cassidy paused, mulling it over. “Anybody that sends you a warnin’, the least he could do is leave his name.”
“Queer the way that come about. You’d think somebody—Davis or one of the girls—would remember who dropped the word.”
“Ain’t it the goddamn truth!” Cassidy rasped. “Beats me how he waltzed in there and spoke his piece, and not one solitary soul recollects nothin’ about him. I mean, it ain’t every day some jasper leaves word one of your friends is about to get his ticket punched.” He shook his head, eyes rimmed with disgust. “I can’t even figger why he left a warnin’! Who the hell do I know that’d go out of his way to save my bacon?”
“Vicey versy too,” Butch added quickly. “Who does he know that wants your bacon smoked?”
“If we knew that,” Cassidy grumbled, “we wouldn’t be sittin’ here scratchin’ our heads. We’d have the name of whoever it was that sent some butthole up here to shoot me!”
“You called it right, Cassidy—a butthole!”
Cassidy and Butch jumped. Starbuck was propped up on his elbow, watching them. He’d listened, slowly recovering his senses, throughout the entire conversation. He was battered but alert, and now he eased himself into a sitting position. He fixed Cassidy with a questioning look.
“All right if I get on my feet?”
“I think I like you better on the floor.”
“Don’t blame you.” Starbuck gave him a ghastly smile. “Only I don’t talk so good on my backsides.”
<
br /> “Talk?” Cassidy regarded him with wary hostility. “What do you wanna talk about, just exactly?”
“The man who hired me.”
A fleeting look of puzzlement crossed Cassidy’s face; then his expression became flat and guarded. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“I got an earful of what you were saying.”
“Yeah?” Cassidy eyed him suspiciously. “So?”
“A little bird tells me we’ve been played for saps.”
“You’ll have to spell it out plainer’n that.”
“We were set up!” Starbuck said fiercely. “Everything that happened here tonight was rigged to get us both killed!”
Cassidy and Butch exchanged a baffled look. Then the outlaw’s gaze swung back to Starbuck. His face was pinched in an oxlike frown.
“You’re gonna be in a helluva fix if you ain’t able to make that stick.”
“Won’t hurt you to listen.”
“Why not, Mike?” Butch interjected. “He might just know something we don’t!”
“Well …” Cassidy hesitated, then nodded to Starbuck. “None of your monkeyshines! You try anything funny and I’ll put your lights out.”
“I’ve got nothing up my sleeve.”
“Slow and easy does it,” Cassidy said, motioning. “Butch, let him have your chair. You come on around here with me.”
Butch obediently rose and circled the table. He stopped beside Cassidy, his hand resting on the butt of his pistol. Then, watchful and alert, they waited.
Starbuck took a tight grip on himself. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and stood for a moment, rocked by a wave of dizziness. He was aware Cassidy might yet kill him. Still, there was strong indication that someone was manipulating them like puppets on a string. He’d decided to level with the outlaw, and take his chances. The time for guile and subterfuge was past.
Some moments elapsed before his head cleared. Finally, he walked to the chair and sat down. He pulled a handkerchief from his hip pocket and gingerly dabbed the cuts on his lip and brow. His left eye was swollen almost completely shut, and he thought it entirely likely his nose was broken. The handkerchief stemmed the flow of blood, and at last he realized he could stall no longer. It was time now to talk for his life.