The Vengeance Seeker 3

by Will C. Knott

  “When was this?”

  “I can’t be sure, mister. Maybe a couple of hours ago. But I wouldn’t swear to it.”

  “Did you see him go out?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  Wolf nodded, turned and stepped out through the open hotel doorway into the night, pausing a moment on the board walk to get his bearings and to suck into his lungs the clean, sharp air that was sweeping down from the Absarokas. There was a touch of pine in it along with a faint chill of snow, and it went a long ways toward cleaning out the stench of that room upstairs.

  He stepped off the wooden sidewalk and crossed the street to the livery, where he found the hostler cleaning a stall in back by the smoky light of a coal-oil lamp. When the man saw Wolf approaching, he seemed relieved; the horse manure was heavy and from the looks of his leathery face, he was an old, not very strong ex-puncher who didn’t take easily to this kind of town labor. Leaning his pitchfork back against the stall, he thumbed his dirty Stetson back off his forehead.

  “You be wanting your hoss now, mister?”

  Wolf shook his head. “I’m wondering if maybe a friend of mine already left. He was a thin fellow, a foot shorter than me—clean-shaven.”

  “Hell, that fits a lot of riders that come in here today.”

  “He left about two hours ago.”

  The man shook his head quickly. “No one like that left from here.”

  “Did you happen to see anyone like that riding out of town about that time?”

  “Yup, I did. Fellow like you described; but he had his own horse out back of the general store and two pack horses pretty well loaded. I watched him leave the alley and ride out. Not long before you rode in, matter of fact. Only he left the other way.”

  “Which way?”

  The fellow abruptly shot a long dart of tobacco juice out of the corner of his mouth. “You say this guy’s your friend?”

  Wolf smiled. “Why else would I care?”

  The man thought a moment, then shrugged. “Well, he was heading straight for North Pass.”

  “Where does that lead?”

  “Through the Absarokas to Deer River Country—and beyond that the Indian River Range.” The man squinted up at Wolf. “You sure are a stranger to these parts, ain’t you.”

  Wolf nodded.

  “Well, that there friend of yours don’t appear to me to be such a tenderfoot. He knows the country, I reckon.”

  “You know him?”

  “I didn’t say that. He stabled his hoss here a couple of times and I heard what he told people his name was.”

  “Was it Leeper? Weed Leeper?”

  “No, sir.” The hostler smiled and reached back for his pitchfork. “Guess it wasn’t your friend, after all. This guy’s name is Carver. George Carver.”

  “Guess that’s right,” said Wolf, turning and starting to walk from the stable. “Thanks.”

  Wolf found the sheriff’s office well down the street, and he entered just as the sheriff finished slamming shut a cell door on a surly cowpoke, who promptly collapsed onto the bunk. Turning wearily to face Wolf, he frowned. The man obviously had his hands full with this town.

  “What do you want, mister?” the sheriff asked, his eyes raking Wolf harshly. He was a heavy man with broad shoulders and a gut that was beginning to sag over his gunbelt, but his greenish eyes were steady when they met Wolf’s.

  “I’d like to get a doctor for a friend of mine, Sheriff. I think he’s been poisoned.”

  The man frowned. “Poisoned?”

  “In the hotel. The fellow’s name is Tinsdale. When I left him he was in bad shape. He said someone had poisoned him.”

  “Well, come on!” the sheriff said, brushing past Wolf and heading for the door. “We’ll get Doc Penner right now!”

  The doctor’s small office above the barber shop was reached by an outside stairway. In answer to the sheriff’s insistent rap, the doctor pulled the door open and blinked unhappily up at the sheriff and Wolf. He was a thin twig of a man with eyes sunken into deep hollows. His hand shook slightly as he held the door open.

  “This guy says his friend’s been poisoned, Doc,” the sheriff told the man.

  The little fellow blinked suspiciously up at Wolf. “How the hell do you know that?” he asked in a surprisingly strong voice. “Might be he drank too much. This town’s conducive.” A powerful whiff of whiskey came with the doctor’s words, but the man’s hand had already steadied on the door and his gaze was unwavering now.

  “He told me,” Wolf replied. “Said someone poisoned him.”

  “How?”

  “He didn’t say. I figured maybe whoever done it poisoned his whiskey.”

  The doctor began to cough violently. His reedy frame doubled over quickly and a handkerchief appeared almost miraculously in his right hand as he pressed it to his mouth. The sheriff waited patiently as the doctor gradually got the coughing fit under control. It was obviously something the sheriff and the doctor were both used to, and Wolf was sorry then that he was putting the little man through all this—but he wanted Tinsdale’s death and the manner of it broadcast throughout the town. He needed to see which vermin scurried out of the woodwork when the excitement started.

  The doctor ducked back into his office for his bag, then followed the two of them down the steps.

  The desk clerk was astonished at their entry a few moments later and scurried out from behind the desk and followed them up the stairs, uttering plaintive queries all the while. Wolf and the sheriff ignored him and when the sheriff pushed open the door, he pulled up abruptly, then raised his hand to his mouth as the stench overwhelmed them.

  The sheriff swore. The doctor said nothing and went on in. While the sheriff lit the candle on the dresser, the doctor put his bag down beside Tinsdale and proceeded to examine him.

  “I know this man,” he said, looking back up at Wolf. “I treated him this afternoon for a gunshot wound. But that’s not what killed him.” He felt Tinsdale’s forehead and looked around the room, then back at the body, evidently noting the fetal position, the arms hugging the abdomen. “He was convulsing, looks like. And incontinent. Yes, it could be poison. Arsenic, maybe. He didn’t die very quickly.”

  In the light from the candle Wolf caught sight of a glass on the floor near the wall. He picked it up. There was still a small trace of whiskey left in it. Handing the glass to the doctor, he said, “Maybe it’s in here.”

  The doctor stood up and sniffed the glass. “Couldn’t tell if it was,” he said. “And I don’t have what I’d need to make a proper analysis. Not in this town.”

  “Where’s the bottle?” asked the sheriff.

  They both looked around. There was none. “Whoever it was took the bottle away,” Wolf said.

  The sheriff looked down at Tinsdale’s coiled body and nodded. “And it’s a cinch this guy didn’t take it anywhere.”

  Wolf heard the sound of the desk clerk behind them in the corridor as he turned from the open doorway and darted for the stairs.

  Abe Dawson was studying his double pair, aces and tens, when the clerk bolted into the saloon and hurried down the bar to grab his brother’s sleeve. Abe caught the movement and glanced over to the bar in time to hear the clerk blurt it out:

  “The sheriff’s upstairs in the hotel. Someone’s poisoned that fellow you gave a room to!”

  Abe slapped his hand down onto the table and jumped out of his seat, the violence of his action causing the piles of chips in front of him to topple forward. “I’m out,” he barked to the other players as he walked quickly over to the bar and grabbed the desk clerk and spun him around.

  “Now what’s this about the sheriff?” he demanded.

  The fellow swallowed unhappily. “He’s up there now! Him and the Doc and another fellow! They say that fellow’s been poisoned.”

  “Poisoned? Drunk more’n likely!”

  “No!” the fellow insisted, shaking his head vigorously.

  Abe shoved the fellow away from
him. “Get back to the desk,” he told him. “And stay there!”

  As the clerk scuttled hastily back to his post, Abe looked across the bar at Luke. Luke’s face was as white as the apron he was wearing. He seemed about to say something, but Abe’s hard glance stopped him. Abe knew what his brother was thinking. They had planned on going up to Tinsdale’s room in the hour before dawn and take Tinsdale’s body from his room and bury it back on the trail somewhere and thus be rid of the man quietly, without any fuss.

  Now they would have to play it real careful like, making the best of the cards that had been dealt them. At that moment the sheriff and the doctor entered the saloon from the hotel, the sheriff obviously looking for either Abe or Luke.

  “Hi, Burt!” Abe called, lifting a hand in greeting.

  The sheriff nodded grimly in greeting and walked down the length of the bar toward him. By this time most of the saloon’s patrons had left their seats and were drifting over toward them. The desk clerk had not even tried to keep his voice down, and now everyone in the place knew why the sheriff was here.

  “Whiskey, Doc?” Luke asked, as the doctor bellied up to the bar alongside the sheriff.

  The doc nodded and with shaking hand reached for the quickly filled shot glass. The sheriff shook his head when Luke asked him if he wanted a drink and then turned his attention to Abe.

  “Jim,” he said, “I’m pretty sure that fellow up in room eight’s been poisoned. Looks like it was inside some whiskey he drank. You know anything about that fellow?”

  “Why sure, Burt. He was a puncher down on his luck. He came in here this afternoon all shot up. Just been over to see the doc, he told me—and his shoulder was as sore as a boil. Asked me to stake him to a room, he did.” Abe glanced at his brother. “That right, Tom?”

  “That’s right, Jim. A real sorry mess he was.”

  “I wanted to kick him out of here,” Abe went on, “but Tom here, he’s got a soft spot for drifters. So we gave him a room, said he could use it until his shoulder got better.”

  “Did you happen to supply him with any liquid nourishment?” the doctor asked ironically, turning to look into Abe’s face.

  Abe chose to ignore the implications of the doctor’s question as the barroom hushed expectantly. Laughing easily, Abe said, “The poor stiff was near broke, Doc. A room was one thing. I couldn’t see providing him with nourishment as well—and if you’re thinking my whiskey’s poison, you sure as hell better watch yourself—at the rate you been packing it away.”

  There was sudden, raw laughter at this from those crowding around. There wasn’t a man in town didn’t know that Doc Penner was a lush—a good doctor, but a lush all the same.

  The doctor smiled crookedly. “It’s a pleasant enough poison, anyway,” he allowed, pushing himself away from the bar.

  “We’ll need some of you fellows,” Sheriff Alvard said, looking around at the crowd of faces, “to take the dead man across to Dundee’s.”

  Two fellows nodded reluctantly and stepped forward.

  “And someone better go over and get the man ready. This ain’t exactly the sweetest smelling corpse he’s ever had the pleasure to bury.”

  A fellow at the far end of the bar said he’d go. When he had left, Burt looked back at Abe.

  “We got Tinsdale wrapped in a blanket from the bed in his room. You better get someone up there to clean the place up. It’s one hell of a mess.”

  Abe nodded. “Thanks, Burt. I’ll see to it.”

  The sheriff turned and walked back down the length of the bar toward the street door, the doctor going with him. Abe watched them push out through the batwings and was about to turn back to his brother behind the bar when he saw the stranger enter the bar from the hotel entrance.

  Oh, Jesus! Abe thought. Tinsdale led him right to us!

  Abe wanted to sit down, but reached out and grabbed the bar to steady himself. There was no doubt it was him. Tinsdale’s description had been accurate as far as it had gone. A big long drink of water with an ugly face and an eye patch over his right eye. So this was the one Charlie had been kicking when Abe pushed the door of the coach open to tell them Laura’d brought their mounts. He was ugly, all right. Ugly and mean. The face would have been handsome maybe, if it weren’t for that long scar which made his face look lopsided and for the thin, cruel mouth. But it was the one eye fixed on Abe the moment Caulder stepped into the saloon that had sent the almost disabling weakness through his limbs.

  The sound of a glass shattering behind him caused Abe to swing around. Luke was standing just behind Abe, his face ashen as he too stared at Wolf Caulder. The glass he had been holding must have just slipped from his hands.

  “For Christ’s sake!” Abe whispered fiercely, “stop staring at the son of a bitch! And give me a drink!”

  As Luke shakily poured the drink, Abe turned to the rest of the bar’s patrons, most of whom had by now drifted back to their tables and card games.

  “Drinks are on the house!” he called. “It’s a cowboy’s wake!” He turned to his brother. “Nothing but the best, Tom!”

  As the men bolted from their tables and crowded the bar, Abe looked back to where Caulder had been standing. He was gone.

  It should have made Abe feel better, but it didn’t. His mouth was dry, and as the men shoved about him at the bar, he grabbed his own drink and went back to his table in the corner and sat down heavily.

  So that’s Wolf Caulder, he thought. And the son of a bitch’s already killed Kid Curry. We’d better get Weed back here!

  Abe downed his whiskey, aware that he needed to piss suddenly. But he was now too uncertain on his feet to get all the way outside to the privy. And besides, Caulder was maybe out there in the darkness now—waiting.

  But at once he realized how he was acting—like a spineless fool, that’s what! The hell with Caulder! Abe pushed himself recklessly to his feet. Weed. Yes, they’d get Weed back! He’d send Cal after him first thing in the morning. He might have to give the kid a map to find Weed’s place, but he’d do it if he had to.

  Feeling much better suddenly, Abe left the saloon and hurried out to the privy.

  Upstairs in his room Wolf slowly, wearily, unbuckled his gun belt and hung it over the bed post by his head. Next he levered a cartridge into the firing chamber of his Winchester and leaned the rifle against the wall, making sure it was within reach of his pillow. Walking to the window then, he looked out, aware of the constant swell of sound from the saloon below, the clip-clop of horses being ridden in town even at this late hour.

  But he would sleep nevertheless, he realized. It had been that kind of a day. And he did not think the Dawson brothers—now calling themselves Jim and Tom Sayles—would move on him this soon. He had caught the surprise—panic even—in their faces when he had appeared in the saloon a few minutes ago. With the murder of Tinsdale still heavy on them, they would not have the stomach for more slaughter. Not immediately. But they would call upon Weed again. Of that Wolf was certain. And on that he was counting.

  Still at the window, Wolf smiled. Diego seemed to be standing beside him suddenly, planning with him. Diego was the old Mexican—now dead—who long before had saved Wolf’s life and then primed him for this deadly business. The gang that had shot Wolf down as a young boy and killed his parents had been avenged by an older, tougher Wolf—a man fashioned by Diego Sanchez. Though for Wolf his vengeance had not been as sweet perhaps as Diego had told him it would be, there had been satisfaction enough. And there would be satisfaction again when he finished with these butchers.

  Wolf turned from the window and headed for his bed, undressing quickly. It had been a long time since his long frame had stretched out to sleep on anything as soft as this mattress. And though he missed the canopy of stars he had become used to studying before he slept, he was too tired at the moment to argue with the arrangement.

  Despite the racket from the saloon below, Wolf Caulder slept soundly.

  Five

  Weed raised
his hand to strike again, but when Mary cowered back into the corner, he reconsidered. Her face was already beginning to swell and soon would be discolored. He might even have knocked a few teeth loose, and he guessed he maybe didn’t want that. She had been a pretty fair looking squaw when first he brought her to his roost.

  He stepped back away from her and sat down at the table. She straightened warily, letting her hand fall from her face. She was still dry-eyed, he noticed with a grudging respect.

  “I’m hungry,” he told her.

  Sullenly, but without a word she went to the cupboard and pulled down the coffee pot and the can of coffee. Filling the pot from a bucket of well water, she threw in the coffee and slammed the pot down onto the stove. She glanced only once in his direction as she built up the fire in the stove with sticks of wood she took from the wood box. As the fire began to thunder in the stove’s gut, she brought out the bacon and began slicing generous chunks and slapping them into the frying pan.

  He leaned back in the chair, satisfied, looked out the window of the cabin and caught sight of his two pack horses. Still heavily laden, they were standing patiently in the yard. Weed had almost forgotten them. He got up from the chair and went out to unload the animals. He had brought Mary back two dresses, a sweater, and a bonnet and had been anxious to please her with them. But he realized that now was probably not the time to present them to her.

  He smiled grimly to himself as he caught the reins of the horses and led them into the small barn that served as his stable. The woman did have spunk at that. Yessir. As soon as he stepped into the cabin she’d lifted the rifle and demanded he take her back to Landusky and away from this prison, as she called it. Most likely she’d found the weapon in the back room. He had simply strode on over to her, ripped the rifle from her hands, and proceeded to punish her a little, without bothering to tell her, of course, that the rifle could not have been fired—that the firing pin had long since been blown away by a faulty cartridge.