Branded

by Eric Red

Three months ago, Nate Sweet was a fresh recruit who had been assigned by the Cody U.S. Marshals Service headquarters to report to Jackson to serve as new marshal Sugarland’s deputy after she had replaced two other marshals killed in the line of duty the month before. Sweet was cocky and overconfident, excited to begin his first assignment after his training, but things between his new boss and him got off to a bumpy start. First, Sweet didn’t know he was a she; Cody headquarters neglected to inform him that the marshal he would be reporting to was a woman—perhaps so he didn’t turn the assignment down—how was he supposed to know he’d be working for a woman? So first thing meeting Bess Sugarland and seeing she was of the fairer sex (and a fine specimen to boot) Sweet had shot his mouth off about her gender, made some dumb remarks, and got his ass chewed by her but hard. Marshal Bess, young Sweet learned in the first five minutes, was a tough-as-nails experienced no-nonsense lawman who took no shit from anybody, especially her deputy. One tongue-lashing was all it took; Sweet respected and feared Bess from day one. It took him a long time to live down the initial bad impression he made with her, but the rookie was eager to prove himself to the lady marshal. The forest fires on the Teton Pass gave him his chance, and when Deputy Sweet saved Marshal Bess’s life and pulled her out of the raging inferno, their respect had become mutual. Since that day, the marshal and her deputy had been a team in Jackson. Bess Sugarland and Nate Sweet had become good friends, a friendship built on the foundation of trust the lawmen’s lives depended on each other. It was nothing romantic—they worked together—Sweet wouldn’t cross that line, but Bess was a beautiful woman and that didn’t mean he didn’t think about it from time to time.

  But he had a job to do and that came first.

  Everything was going just fine until a month ago when that Idaho marshal Ford showed up with that branded kid and wanted Bess to find Joe Noose to catch some villain he was after. Sweet hadn’t met Noose but heard enough stories. Bess got all worked up about Noose needing to see the branded kid right away but she didn’t say why. Problem was, the bounty hunter was over in Victor being sheriff so she and the other marshal and the boy rode straight out that day over the Teton Pass. It all happened so fast. Marshal Bess made her decision, grabbed her guns, saddled her horse, gave Sweet some orders, then off she rode with her companions and left Sweet minding the store. That was Bess Sugarland to a T: fast and decisive.

  But now here he was, Deputy Sweet was marshal of Jackson now, at least until the real marshal got back. It was a thrill to wear the new badge and bear the weight of that responsibility the badge bestowed for a few days. Townspeople looked at him with new respect on the street. It was uneventful. He basically ran the office, filed reports, dealt with a few local disputes, pretty much what he did before.

  And five days later, Bess returned, only to leave again. She showed up riding over the Teton Pass with the same marshal and the big tough man Joe Noose Sweet got to shake hands with for the first time. They’d left the kid in Victor. It was not to be a long stay for Bess, Noose, and Ford—it was just a whistle stop before they headed out again on their manhunt. They had stopped off just so Bess could gather a few maps and brief her deputy, getting him up to speed on events.

  Bess had good news and bad news for Sweet.

  The good news was he was going to get to wear the marshal badge awhile longer, possibly for a few months.

  The bad news was she was going on the trail with Joe Noose and Marshal Ford to catch an evil killer, she could be gone for months, and Sweet would be on his own minding the U.S. Marshal’s office. Could she count on him? she wanted to know.

  Of course she could, he said, and meant it.

  But when Marshal Bess rode out with the big bounty hunter and that other marshal, Sweet felt a knot in the pit of his stomach now that public safety in Jackson, Wyoming, was going to be on his watch and he had no backup. As far as law enforcement in town, he was top cop. As her horse disappeared into the distance with her two saddle companions, Deputy Nate Sweet was already wishing Marshal Bess Sugarland was back.

  But the deputy marshal took comfort that he certainly wouldn’t have to worry about the lady marshal’s safety with her big friend around.

  * * *

  Today, two months into his tour being U.S. Marshal of Jackson, he was settling into the job. Nate Sweet walked the streets and felt finally it was his town. He had adjusted to the lonesomeness during the long months without Bess, and townspeople were getting used to him. As he walked down Broadway on the freezing cold snowy Wyoming day, he looked out at the gigantic crags of the Grand Teton mountain range rising majestically against the sky, and Sweet felt like he just belonged in this place. He’d earned his badge or had started to. Sweet wasn’t a greenhorn rookie anymore. While he looked forward to Bess coming back and taking over again as marshal, Sweet believed he could perform the job she trusted him to do until she did return, confident he would not fail her.

  A few folks riding horses and wagons traveled past him in the bitter conditions. Sweet caught snippets of conversation on a wagon and heard a name dropped in conversation, a name he’d been hearing a lot the last week or so . . .

  “Puzzleface.”

  There was someone new in town.

  Two gamblers were walking by, one of them talking about losing a lot of money playing cards with a person called Puzzleface, who was getting himself a reputation, it seemed. Sweet just caught a piece of the conversation before he turned the corner, but this character with the odd name sounded like a nefarious individual who was drawing attention. Whoever Puzzleface was, people were talking about him.

  On Main Street, Sweet went into the dry goods store and grocer to buy some coffee beans for the marshal’s office. He was surprised to see Sally Kinkaid at the counter paying hard cash for a large stock of food and supplies. Sweet thought he had recognized her horse and wagon parked outside the grocer on the street; as far as everyone knew Sally couldn’t be shopping for groceries when she had no money to buy anything and nobody, not even the grocer, would extend her any more credit. Sally was a single mother who lived with her three small children a few miles out of town on a small run-down farm; the family was destitute because her husband had died the previous summer. Everyone in town was concerned with the welfare of Sally and her children and how they would even survive this hard winter with no money. Now here Sally was, Sweet saw, spending money buying enough groceries and provisions to see her entire flock through the winter. Nate was delighted that the poor woman had a run of luck and told her so.

  “Sally, happy to see things have turned around for you,” Sweet said. “Looks like you and your kids are set for the winter. Folks were getting worried about you. How did you get the money?”

  The rugged farm woman looked very happy when she smiled at him. “Somebody give it to me.”

  “They gave how much to you?”

  “Fifty dollars. A proper Christian miracle.”

  “Who? Tell me so I can buy him a drink.”

  “He said his name is Puzzleface. He was riding into Jackson. Passed our farm on the way, saw us and the children out in the yard, and walked up and handed us the money. He just gave me the fifty dollars. Puzzleface said I didn’t have to pay it back. I don’t know what we would have done. We didn’t have no supplies. We’d have starved this winter.”

  “Who is this Good Samaritan?”

  “Never laid eyes on him before, Nate.” Unlike Bess, Nate was uncomfortable being addressed other than by his Christian name, so to everybody in town he wasn’t Deputy Marshal Sweet or Deputy Sweet, just plain old Nate.

  “Funny name. Puzzleface. Did he give a last name?”

  “He did but I disremember. Puzzleface he goes by I’m guessing because he has a big scar on his face.”

  Sweet helped Sally and her kids load the supplies on the wagon with Charley White, the grocer, and they both waved as the wagon pulled out up the street.

  “That woman and her kids are nice people, they deserved that luck. That don’t
happen every day, somebody just giving you fifty dollars.” Charley shook his head. “Wish it did.”

  “And giving it to a poor family who needed to eat, asking for nothing in return.” Sweet smiled. “I’d like to meet this Puzzleface guy.”

  When they were back inside the grocery store and Deputy Sweet was grinding fresh coffee beans from the big metal mill by turning the wheel, he asked Charley White about Puzzleface. “What do you know about this individual?”

  “I’ve been hearing a lot of different things about this Puzzleface from my customers, Nate. Everybody seems to have met the man or has a story about him to tell. Some of it good, some of it bad.”

  “How bad?”

  “You know that big train robbery on the Union Pacific Railroad that got held up last month?” The deputy nodded to the grocer. “Well, some folks here in town are saying Puzzleface pulled the holdup, got away with a lot of loot, in cash.”

  “Has Puzzleface come in here?”

  “No, not just yet. But folks seen him around. With that scar and all he’s hard to miss.”

  Deputy Sweet was very intrigued. “Do you know where this stranger is staying?”

  The grocer shook his head apologetically. Nate took his bagged coffee and paid cash. “I’ll ask around. People have seen him. Anybody new in town gets noticed, especially with a scar on his face.”

  Deputy Nate Sweet figured he better have a conversation with the new guy in town.

  First he had to track him down.

  CHAPTER 8

  Stopping off at the U.S. Marshal’s office, the place lonely without his lady boss, Deputy Sweet put away the coffee, grabbed his Winchester, locked up, went to the corral in back, and got on his horse. He rode off down the street through the snow, figuring he’d check out the Jackson Hotel and see if the new arrival was staying there.

  The hotel clerk told him nobody named Puzzleface or anybody fitting his description was currently registered at the establishment, but on the deputy’s way out, a ranch hand said he had seen a man with such a scar eating lunch alone at the local restaurant Mary’s Pantry earlier in the day. Sweet asked the worker for a description of Puzzleface and was told the man was dark-haired, of medium build, average in every respect, save for a jagged scar on his face.

  Riding over to the diner two blocks away, the deputy questioned the cook and waitress couple who owned and ran the restaurant if they remembered seeing a man with a scar earlier that day. Mary Johnson sure did—she would not soon forget the man with the scar who had left her a generous twenty-dollar tip for a seventy-five-cent lunch. Her husband, Bob, confirmed the man with the facial scar had eaten alone, been very pleasant, wore no gun belt, and didn’t appear to be armed. Mary added Puzzleface was a very sensitive person; she could see it in his eyes, and she was never wrong about people. Who cared about a scar?

  Mounting up, the deputy rode down Cache Street to canvas the bars on Pearl Street, checking if Puzzleface was throwing his money around there as well. He rode past two wranglers on their horses. He recognized the men as part of the crew on a ranch south near Bondurant, stopping to ask them if either had seen a man named Puzzleface with a scar who was new in town. One of the wranglers said a lot of folks have been asking that. When Sweet asked him what he meant, the cowboy just shrugged and said he’d heard people have been asking, is all.

  The information that he was not the only one looking for Puzzleface should have been a clue for the deputy, but he didn’t catch it at the time.

  Sweet rode on. The snow was really coming down in a huge dump, and the lawman was freezing his ass off in the subzero weather, but his adrenaline was pumping.

  As Deputy Nate Sweet rode down Main Street, he felt the blood rush to his loins, experiencing the same thrill he did losing his virginity because this was another big first time for the rookie lawman, conducting his own investigation tracking down an actual individual, hunting a man down. Now he had to use his brains and think, like Marshal Bess would. Take inventory was her pet phrase, which meant look at the facts you knew.

  Who was this mysterious Puzzleface? What did Sweet know about him so far? Only that the man had come to town giving away money to needy folks. If the talk was true that Puzzleface had robbed a train, it made sense he’d be in Jackson—outlaws on the run routinely hid in Jackson Hole because the bowl formation of the valley and the natural protection of the surrounding big mountains made it a good place to hole up in; the only easy way in or out was the pass and rivers, and the area offered many natural hideouts to elude law enforcement. Was Puzzleface an outlaw and train robber? Did his guilty conscience over his ill-gotten gains have him going around giving away his stolen loot? Was Puzzleface like Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to the poor? The more Nate Sweet’s overactive imagination thought about Puzzleface the more interested he was to meet him.

  After a five-minute ride he reached the town square, dismounting in front of the Silver Dollar Bar, the largest saloon in Jackson. The sign was painted in big gaudy gold letters. Coal oil lamps inside cast a burnished inviting glow on the stained-glass windows. It was already after six and getting dark out; the deputy marshal was technically off duty and could have a drink if he wanted one, but thought he’d canvas this place first. Tied his horse to the buck-and-rail hitching post alongside many other horses whose owners were inside. Deputy Sweet bundled himself through the swinging saloon doors into the warm boozy embrace and rowdy atmosphere of the drinking establishment and gambling hall. The Silver Dollar was a big joint with saddles instead of barstools for customers to sit on at the bar by the brass footrail. Cigar smoke hung in the air. It was good to get out of the cold.

  The deputy looked around for Puzzleface. To his right, five card tables filled with poker, blackjack, and faro players stretched off into the darkness at the back of the room in the lamplight of the smoke-filled saloon. To his left was the bar itself, populated by a bunch of cowboys slumped over their beers and whiskeys.

  Figuring he’d check the bar first for Puzzleface, Sweet shouldered up to the rail and looked left and right down the faces of the cowboys in profile to him. He stared at the drinkers one by one, until they felt his eyes and looked straight at him so the deputy could see their whole faces. A few gave him the side-eye, one looked back in challenge, but the deputy made sure the silver-starred badge on his chest caught the light, so the rednecks quickly backed down.

  None of them had a scar on their face.

  “On the house, Nate.” The bartender Wilbur, a big, bearded barrel-chested ex-trapper who stood across the bar, had slapped a shot glass in front of him, ready to pour the bottle of whiskey already in his mitt.

  Just as Deputy Sweet was about to ask Wilbur if he’d seen anybody fitting Puzzleface’s description, the lawman was ambushed.

  Two sets of hands slapped him on the back heartily as six members of the Jackson Hole Gentlemen’s Business Bureau came out of nowhere to surround him on all sides. These men were the middle-aged wealthy financiers and property developers who owned much of Jackson—or, since most of Jackson Hole was government land with only 15 percent private ownership, behaved like they did. These rich men who owned ranches in the valley were sporting men of leisure and outdoorsmen who liked to hunt and fish. The Silver Dollar bar was their unofficial clubhouse where this overgrown boys’ club loved to smoke and drink—and it was here that the men directed their efforts toward their primary raison d’être: protect their Man’s World from the assault of Radical Feminists, namely their wives. For among other dubious accomplishments, the Jackson Hole Gentlemen’s Business Bureau also happened to be the husbands of the ladies of the Jackson Hole Women’s Auxiliary and they hated everything their wives stood for. It was a grand enmity that was shared in equal measure by their spouses; even as at home the couples shared wealth and meals and family, generally loved one another, and were happy for the most part.

  Crowded in by the men of the Gentlemen’s Business Bureau, Deputy Sweet found himself trapped and glad-handed
. He knew it was part of his job that he had to be nice to the Jackson bigwigs, but he could hardly believe after escaping the wives, he’d been collared by the husbands. At least with the men he’d get drinks instead of tea.

  As Emil Rittenhouse bought drinks all around after ordering a bottle of expensive Scottish whiskey that would have set back Sweet a month’s salary, he poured the deputy a stiff drink, as Stephen McCoy shoved an expensive Cuban cigar in the lawman’s mouth and lit it up as the six men lifted their glasses and a toast was made to town marshal Nate Sweet.

  The deputy didn’t toast. “Thanks, gentlemen, but Marshal Bess is the marshal, I’m just her deputy taking over for her until she gets back.”

  Some of the men laughed derisively and rolled their eyes, sharing dismissive looks clearly directed at Bess, which Sweet did not appreciate.

  He let it go, tried to be politic. “Good whiskey. Thanks, gentlemen.”

  Rittenhouse patted Sweet on the back. “I just want to say that speaking for all of the men here, we’ve felt a whole lot better about things since that marshal Bess left and you took over as marshal now we got a man wearing the badge.”

  The other men said a chorus of “Hear, hear.”

  “It’s temporary,” Sweet said through clenched teeth.

  “Let’s make it permanent.”

  The insults to Bess from these fat asses had gotten Sweet riled. He wanted to get away from these insufferable fools before he said or did something he’d regret. The good booze in the high altitude had gone straight to Nate Sweet’s head, and as his inhibitions slid away, so his blood boiled over the disrespect these men dared show toward Bess to her own deputy. It made his knuckles itch to connect with something. If they kept it up, bigwigs or no, somebody was going to get hurt tonight.

  Sweet took a deep breath. “You don’t understand, Mr. Rittenhouse, it’s like I explained to your wife”—a disgusted look from Rittenhouse—“Marshal Bess is out on the trail on a manhunt and while she is gone I am deputy marshal until and just until she gets back. But while I have the temporary powers and authorities of a marshal, I am not now or ever have been a United States Marshal. I’m still a deputy. Bess Sugarland is the U.S. Marshal of Jackson. Everybody clear on everything now, or do I need to write it down for y’all?”