Manhunter / Deadwood
Page 39
Frank’s dressing room was located directly behind the bandstand. Starbuck found him seated before a mirror, applying stage makeup. He looked up with a sheepish grin.
“You caught me!” He gave his face one last dab with a makeup sponge. “Hiding all these wrinkles takes considerable work.”
“Near as I recollect,” Starbuck said affably, “you always had a secret yearning to tread the boards. Looks like you got your wish.”
“‘All the world’s a stage!’” Frank said with an eloquent gesture. “‘And one man in his time plays many parts!’”
Starbuck’s smile broadened. “I’ve played a few myself … here and there.”
“A few!” Frank laughed. “Luke, you’re a born actor! You could’ve made it big in the theatre.”
“Well, like you said, all the world’s a stage.”
Frank waved him to a chair. Starbuck seated himself and took out a pack of cigarettes. Some years ago he had switched from roll-your-owns to the new tailor-made variety. It was one of his few concessions to the modern age; he still preferred, and used, ordinary kitchen matches. He struck one on his thumbnail and lit the cigarette.
“Talking about rôles reminds me.” Frank began stuffing an ancient briar pipe. “I meant to ask last night, and it slipped my mind. You in town on business?”
“After a fashion.” Starbuck took a long puff, and his genial face toughened. “Fellow embezzled a bank out in California. I got wind he was holed up somewhere in the French Quarter.”
“Was?” Frank eyed him with a curious look. “You say that like he’s not there anymore.”
“Yeah, well—” Starbuck hesitated, a note of irritation in his voice. “I went to arrest him this afternoon. Damn fool decided to make a fight of it.”
“He pulled on you?”
Starbuck nodded. “Had himself a little peashooter. One of those thirty-two-calibre jobs.”
Frank regarded him sombrely. “So you killed him?”
“No choice,” Starbuck explained. “I had the drop on him and he still went for his gun. A goddamn bookkeeper, for Chrissake!”
Starbuck was not as sudden as he’d once been. Time had slowed his gun hand, but he now compensated by gaining the edge before he made his move. These days, the old .45 Colt, still carried in a crossdraw holster, was already in hand when the trouble commenced. If anything, he was more dangerous than ever.
“Too bad for him.” Frank sucked on his pipe, his gaze speculative. “How many does that make? From what I’ve read, you must have better than thirty notches by now.”
“Notches!” Starbuck repeated in a sardonic tone. “What a crock! Bat Masterson fed that hogwash to the papers and they swallowed it whole.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Well, last year he went to work as a sportswriter for the Morning Telegraph in New York. For my money, they ought to have him reporting on sporting houses. That and gambling was always his strong suit.”
“Yeah?” Frank appeared puzzled. “So what’s that got to do with this ‘notches’ business?”
“Once a tinhorn, always a tinhorn! He wanted to impress all his Eastern friends, and he needed an angle. So he bought himself an old Colt and cut notches in the handle. To be exact, twenty-six notches! Now he’s got everybody convinced he tamed the West and killed all those badmen in gunfights. Spun himself a fairy tale and goddamn if they didn’t buy it!”
“I take it you’ve got the straight goods on him?”
“For a fact!” Starbuck puffed smoke like an angry dragon. “I’ve known Masterson going on thirty years. He only killed one man in his whole life! And that was in a shootout over a whore. Course, nobody would believe the truth if you told them. He’s set himself up as the he-wolf lawman of the frontier and it’s all but carved in stone. I think back to marshals like Tilghman and Heck Thomas, and it flat turns my stomach. They’re the ones that did the dirty work, and tinhorns like Masterson wind up with all the glory. Sorry bastard!”
“Life’s funny.” Frank wagged his head back and forth. “All this whiffledust about the old days ought to give people dizzy spells. Sometimes I think they prefer the lies—and the liars.”
“Yeah, damned if they don’t!” Starbuck considered a moment. “What’s the reaction to these talks you and Cole give every night? Do the crowds believe you when you tell them how it really was with Jesse?”
“I tend to doubt it.” Frank’s eyes were suddenly faraway and clouded. “Legends die harder than men. Jesse was killed twenty-one years ago last month, and folks still believe what they want to believe. Hell, not long ago, even Teddy Roosevelt likened him to Robin Hood! And a president’s never wrong. Anybody will tell you that.”
“How about you?” Starbuck asked quietly. “When you look back … how do you see Jesse?”
Frank gave him a humourless smile. “‘Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!’”
“Forget Shakespeare,” Starbuck countered. “You’re no liar, so tell me how Frank James feels.”
“Luke, you heard my talk last night. I might have shaded the truth to add a touch of drama; but for the most part, it’s what I say to every crowd, at every show. We robbed banks and trains because it was easy work. As for the poor and oppressed—we never robbed to help anybody but ourselves.”
“And Jesse?”
“A hard man,” Frank said with a distracted air. “Too hard for me to remember him with any real charity. I guess I just saw him kill too many people.”
“I’d say that’s epitaph enough.”
“Let’s turn it around,” Frank said with a glint of amusement in his eyes. “How would you want your own epitaph to read?”
Starbuck looked stern, and then burst out laughing. “Tell you the truth, I don’t give a good goddamn! I reckon I never did. Otherwise I would’ve chose a dif- ferent line of work.”
“You take that attitude and you’ll wind up in the same boat with Tilghman and Heck Thomas. A hundred years from now nobody will know your name or anything about you. All they’ll remember is Masterson and that crowd. The tinhorns who tooted their own trumpet!”
“No.” Starbuck’s weathered face split in a grin. “I’ll be remembered. A whole crowd will turn out to greet me when I walk through the gates of hell.”
“You call that an epitaph?”
“Why not?” Starbuck remarked softly. “I’m the one that sent them there.”
“Do me a favour, will you?”
“Name it.”
“When you get there”—Frank’s mouth curled in an odd smile—“tell Jesse I said hello.”
“Frank, you’ve got yourself a deal.”
The old outlaw and the manhunter shook hands. Then Starbuck stood and walked to the door of the dressing room. There he turned, and gave the last of the James boys an offhand salute.
Outside the tent, a line was slowly gathering at the ticket booth. Starbuck skirted around them, idly wondering how large a crowd would attend the evening show. As he walked towards the fairgrounds entrance, it occurred to him that nothing had changed. Tonight merely confirmed what he’d always wanted to believe.
A lifetime ago he had followed his instincts and spared a wanted man. The gesture had cost him $10,000 and the everlasting enmity of a St. Louis banker. Now, looking back across the years, he thought he’d been repaid manyfold. Some men deserved to die and others deserved to live.
He was glad he hadn’t killed Frank James.
America’s Authentic Voice of the Western Frontier
Matt Braun
Bestselling author of Bloody Hand
HICKOK & CODY
In the wind-swept campsite of the Fifth Cavalry Regiment, along Red Willow Creek, Russia’s Grand Duke Alexis has arrived to experience the thrill of the buffalo hunt. His guides are: Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody—two heroic dead-shots with a natural flair for showmanship, a hunger for adventure, and the fervent desire to keep the myths of the Old West alive. But what approached from the E
ast was a journey that crossed the line into dangerous territory. It would offer Alexis a front row seat to history, and would set Hickok and Cody on a path to glory.
“Braun tackles the big men, the complex personalities of those brave few who were pivotal figures in the settling of an untamed frontier.”
—Jory Sherman, author of Grass Kingdom
“Matt Braun has a genius for taking real characters out of the Old West and giving them flesh-and-blood immediacy.”
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Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
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HC 8/02
AMERICA’S AUTHENTIC VOICE OF THE WESTERN FRONTIER
Matt Braun
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THE WILD ONES
Into the West of the 1870s came a family of New York City stage performers: a widowed father, his son, and a daughter whose beauty and singing voice could make the most hardened frontiersmen weep. The Fontaine family was not prepared for the life they found across the Mississippi. From Abilene to Dodge City, they crossed paths with some of the legendary figures on the frontier, from Jesse James to Bill Hickok and General George Custer. All the while, the Fontaines kept searching for a place to settle down—until they set their sights on the boomtown called Denver. Awaiting Lillian Fontaine in Denver are fame and loss, fortune and betrayal. But between Dodge and her destiny are a thousand miles of unconquered country, an outlaw band, and one man who will force the young songstress to give the performance of her life …
“Matt Braun is a master storyteller of frontier fiction.”
—Elmer Kelton
“Matt Braun is head and shoulders above all the rest who would attempt to bring the gunmen of the Old West to life.”
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GOOD PLAN GONE BAD …
A shot sounded from within the bank and one of the tellers stumbled through the door. He lost his footing and fell face first onto the sidewalk. On his heels, the three inside men burst out the door and ran for their horses. Frank was in the lead, followed by Jesse, and last in line was Bob Younger. Bunched together, they dodged and weaved, snapping off wild shots as they headed for the hitch rack. The marshal and Elias Stacey opened up on them in a rolling barrage. The bank window shattered and bullets pocked the wall of the building all around them. Younger’s horse reared backward and toppled dead as he grabbed for the reins. Beside him, still in the middle, Jesse bent low under the hitch rack.
Starbuck, tracking them in his sights, had not yet fired. From the moment they darted out of the bank, he’d waited for a clear shot. His concentration was on Jesse, but the other men were in the way, spoiling his aim. Then, as Younger’s horse fell dead, he saw an opening. He touched off the trigger as Jesse rose from beneath the hitch rack …
PRAISE FOR SPUR AWARD—WINNING AUTHOR MATT BRAUN
“Matt Braun is head and shoulders above all the rest who would attempt to bring the gunmen of the Old West to life.”
—Terry C. Johnston, author of the Plainsmen series
“Matt Braun has a genius for taking real characters out of the Old West and giving them flesh-and-blood immediacy.”
—Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
OTHER TITLES BY MATT BRAUN
TOMBSTONE
THE SPOILERS
EL PASO
THE WILD ONES
KINCH RILEY
INDIAN TERRITORY
HANGMAN’S CREEK
JURY OF SIX
DODGE CITY
DAKOTA
A DISTANT LAND
WINDWARD WEST
CROSSFIRE
THE HIGHBINDERS
THE WARLORDS
THE SPOILERS
HICKOK AND CODY
THE OVERLORDS
TOMBSTONE
RIO GRANDE
THE BRANNOCKS
THE GAMBLERS
RIO HONDO
THE SAVAGE LAND
NOBLE OUTLAW
CIMARRON JORDAN
LORDS OF THE LAND
ONE LAST TOWN
TEXAS EMPIRE
JURY OF SIX
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS
NOTE: If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
This novel is a work of historical fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents relating to non-historical figures are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance of such non-historical figures, places or incidents to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
MANHUNTER / DEADWOOD
Manhunter copyright © 1981 by Matthew Braun.
Deadwood copyright © 1981 by Matthew Braun. Published by arrangement with Pocket Books.
Cover photo © Creatas/Inmagine.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 0-312-94604-X
EAN: 978-0-312-94604-3
Printed in the United States of America
Manhunter Sphere Books Ltd edition / 1982
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / March 2003
Deadwood Pocket Books edition / December 1981
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / August 2003
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Hole-in-the-Wall County
OTHER TITLES BY MATT BRAUN
TOMBSTONE
THE SPOILERS
EL PASO
THE WILD ONES
KINCH RILEY
INDIAN TERRITORY
HANGMAN’S CREEK
JURY OF SIX
DODGE CITY
DAKOTA
A DISTANT LAND
WINDWARD WEST
CROSSFIRE
THE HIGHBINDERS
THE WARLORDS
THE SPOILERS
HICKOK AND CODY
THE OVERLORDS
TOMBSTONE
RIO GRANDE
THE BRANNOCKS
THE GAMBLERS
RIO HONDO
THE SAVAGE LAND
NOBLE OUTLAW
CIMARRON JORDAN
LORDS OF THE LAND
ONE LAST TOWN
TEXAS EMPIRE
JURY OF SIX
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’S PAPERBACKS
PRAISE FOR MATT BRAUN
“Matt Braun is a master storyteller of frontier fiction.”
—Elmer Kelton
“Matt Braun is one of the best!”
—Don Coldsmith, author of The Spanish Bit series
“He tells it straight—and he tells it well.”
—Jory Sherman, author of Grass Kingdom
“Matt Braun has a genius for taking real characters out of the Old West and giving them flesh-and-blood immediacy.”
—Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee
“Braun blends historical fact and ingenious fiction … A top-drawer Western novelist!”
—Robert L. Gale, Western Biographer
This novel is a work of historical fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents relating to non-historical figures are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance of such non-historical figures, places or incidents to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
; MANHUNTER / DEADWOOD
Manhunter copyright © 1981 by Matthew Braun.
Deadwood copyright © 1981 by Matthew Braun. Published by arrangement with Pocket Books.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
Cover photo © Creatas/Inmagine.
eISBN 9781429926416
First eBook Edition : August 2011
EAN: 978-0-312-94604-3