Death Rattle

by Jory Sherman

  “You asked to see me,” Valencia said in crisp, barely accented tones.

  “Sit down, Mr. Valencia,” Pete said and introduced himself and Brad Storm.

  Ernesto pulled out one of the wooden chairs cut from a barrel and cushioned in the seat. The three men shook hands.

  Pete reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a miniature wallet. He opened it to display his badge. Ernesto looked down at it. Pete closed the wallet and slipped it back into his pocket. The room hummed with the animated conversations of women and a few old men who did not work. The women were either maids or housewives out for a morning of shopping with friends. For many, the café served as a listening post and gossip exchange, or constituted their only chance for a social life.

  “Brad and I are private detectives,” Pete said. “We work for the Denver Detective Agency.”

  “Police?” Ernest said.

  “Policía privada,” Pete said.

  “Ah,” Ernesto said, his dark brown eyes wide. “And what is it you wish to talk to me about?”

  “The Golden Council,” Pete said. “Insurance.”

  Ernesto’s eyes seemed to darken to black onyx, and his mouth went slack beneath his moustache.

  “I pay it,” he said. “Every week.”

  “How much do you pay?” Pete asked.

  The girl set two cups of steaming coffee in front of Brad and Pete, looked at Ernesto.

  “Café, Ernesto?” she said.

  “No,” he said, and she backed away with polite movements.

  Brad blew on his coffee and took a sip. Pete stared at Ernesto.

  “How much each week, Ernesto?”

  “Two percent of the money I take in,” he said.

  “Who comes to collect the money?”

  “Two men. Never the same. I do not know their names. They do not tell me their names. But I pay.” He paused. “Cada semana,” he said bitterly.

  “Why do you pay these men?” Pete asked and picked up his cup, the steam rising in tendrils to his nostrils.

  The morning sun blazed through the front windows of the café, the light fracturing and transforming into different colors from the painted legends of meals and prices. The faces of the women seated at the front tables took on orange, blue, and green complexions.

  “Because,” Ernesto said, closing his eyes for a moment. Sweat broke out on his forehead and he reached for a handkerchief in his back pocket. He rubbed the cloth across his forehead and swiped the wrinkles in his neck that were taking on a glistening sheen from the perspiration.

  “Because?” Pete said.

  “I do not wish to talk about this. I pay the insurance. Why do you ask?”

  “I think these men are bandidos,” Pete said. “I also think they killed Sheriff Brown and Sheriff Dimsdale. They may have killed others who would not pay for their insurance. If these men, these criminals, threatened you in any way, we want to know about it. We want to bring these men to justice before the court.”

  Ernesto’s whole body seemed to wince as he listened to Pete’s words. His face contorted into a mask of remembered pain, and Brad thought he was going to cry at any moment.

  “My friend,” Ernesto said in a low voice, looking around to see if any eavesdroppers might hear him, “was one of the first these men came to see. He owned a small tienda on Calle Flores. He sold the little rugs and the clay pots, the ceniceros and the big ollas his wife and family made in their home. It was a very small business and Eladio Camarillo did not make much money except when it is summer.

  “That is when two men came to him, this last summer, and told him they wanted money every week. He told them he could not give them the money. They told him he would be sorry and they went away.”

  “And that was it?” Pete said.

  “Oh, no, that was not the end of it. Maybe one week later, Eladio was awakened by a noise outside his house and there were four or five men on horses. They came into his house and they molested his daughters and his wife, Marianna, and they told him he must pay every week or they would kill his family and burn down his house.”

  “Did he know who the men were?” Pete asked.

  Ernesto shook his head.

  “They had no faces. They wore the yellow, what do you say, hoods? Yes, the hoods. They raped his woman and his two daughters and they beat Ernesto’s face before they rode away.”

  “So, what did your friend do?” Pete asked.

  “He paid the two men who came to see him the next day. He paid them until he had no more money and then he moved away to Pueblo.”

  “Are there any others you know of who are paying and have not moved away?” Pete drank from his cup and swished the coffee around in his mouth.

  “Yes, there are others.”

  “Will you give me their names?”

  “I do not know. They are very afraid of these men after what happened to Eladio and his family.”

  “It would help us if we could talk to them.”

  “I will think about it. Maybe you will come back tomorrow, eh?”

  “We’ll be back,” Pete said. “Thank you.”

  Ernesto arose from his chair and bowed slightly.

  “Enjoy the coffee,” he said in Spanish. “And you do not pay me. I hope you will not tell what I have told you.”

  “I don’t remember your telling me anything,” Pete said.

  Ernesto smiled a half smile and returned to his office. He spoke to the serving girl first and pointed at their table, waving a finger to show her that she was not to give Pete and Brad a bill.

  Brad swallowed a gulp of coffee, a look of deep reflection on his face.

  “We’ve got to get those bastards,” Pete said.

  “Well, Pete, we know where they are. Do you have an army at your disposal?”

  “How many men would we need? How many could you get to ride with us to that smelter?”

  “Just Julio and Carlos, who work for me. That gives us three.”

  “I hope you’re not laughing about this.”

  “No, Pete. I’m not laughing. That man is genuinely afraid. And I don’t blame him. This Golden Council will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. They pick on poor shop owners and Ernesto here. But if they are allowed to keep doing this, they won’t stop until they’ve hog-tied the whole town.”

  “They must be stopped. You agree?”

  “I agree, but there’s something else that bothers me about this gang.”

  “Oh? What is that?” Pete drank the rest of his coffee and waved away the serving girl when she came toward them carrying a pot in her hand.

  “Somebody pretty smart is heading this outfit. And I think it’s somebody we wouldn’t expect right off.”

  “I don’t get your drift,” Pete said.

  “From what little I’ve seen of these hooded gunmen, they’re not smart enough to run an insurance agency, much less keep track of sales figures.”

  “I think I see what you mean, Brad.”

  Brad finished his own coffee, set his cup down.

  “It’s that two percent that I wonder about.”

  “What?”

  “Why two percent? Where does that come from? Not from those boys in the yellow hoods. They wouldn’t have the brains and they would probably take all they could get and leave town.”

  Pete leaned back in his chair and pushed his hat back on his head. He looked at Brad with a newfound respect.

  “You may be on to something, Brad. I hadn’t thought about that. I just thought they were pretty well organized. And for them to murder Hugh, it showed me they don’t want anybody in their way.”

  He stood up, and Brad pushed away from the table.

  “I think we have to look for the real boss of this outfit,” he said. “I’ll give it some more thought. But you’ll be on your own for a few days.”

  “How come?”

  “I expected to be home last night. I’m riding back to the ranch today. I’ll see to the stock and talk to Felicity. Be back in a day or
two.”

  “Promise?”

  Brad shook his head. “In this uncertain world, Pete, any man who makes promises is a damned fool.”

  “I’ll look for you when I see you, then.”

  “That might be best. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “Bring your ideas with you, Brad.”

  “I will, and I’ll bring this, too,” he said, lifting the rattles from his shirt for a brief moment.

  “Ever the Sidewinder,” Pete said, stepping away from the table into a splash of sunlight.

  “You bet,” Brad said. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a two-dollar bill, and pushed it under his cup. Then he started for the door. The serving girl smiled at him, and Brad touched a finger to the brim of his hat in farewell.

  THIRTEEN

  Earl Fincher led his men from the basin over the uphill road, the sun at their backs, the breeze in their faces. The mountains stood out like majestic monuments, clear and distinct in the crisp morning air. An hour later, he called a halt.

  His men gathered around him in a semicircle, their horses pawing the ground, switching their tails at the gray deerflies, snorting and bobbing their heads.

  “Here’s where we split up in twos,” he said. “You all have places to stay while you’re in Leadville. Lenny and I will bunk up at the Carmody over on Pine Street, by the river. You have your assignments. I want every Mex shopkeeper and store owner signed up for our protection services.”

  The men laughed.

  “That hotel stinks,” Emsley said.

  “No more’n yours, Dick,” Earl said, and the men laughed again.

  “I especially want each of you to pay attention to the lists of names I gave you. Them what is suspected of being money hoarders get special attention. I circled them on your lists. If there’s anything we hate, men, it’s Mexes hoardin’ money.”

  The men snickered in understanding.

  “That money they’re hoarding belongs in the bank.” He paused. “Or in our pockets.”

  The men all laughed again and looked at each other with knowing smirks on their faces.

  Leather creaked as the men shifted their weights in the saddles. The restless horses pawed the ground.

  “You all have your hoods?”

  The men all nodded. A couple of them grunted in the affirmative.

  “Abe, you, Vickers, Giles, and Dick, pay a call on that little weasel Sanchez tonight. He turned us down, and I want the fear of God put into him.”

  “We ought to hang that Mex,” Vickers said. “He said he’d never pay us one centavo.”

  “We’ll see what he says tomorrow after you boys put the boots to his wife,” Fincher said.

  “I’d like to put the boots to him,” Abe said.

  Some of the men laughed.

  “I mean—” Abe started to say.

  “We know what you mean, Abe,” Earl said. “You don’t like your pussy on a stick.”

  All of the men guffawed at Fincher’s joke.

  “Tonight,” Fincher continued, “Lenny and I will meet up with Al Loomis and Cole and pay a call on Mr. Mortimer Taggert and his wife at their home. Al, meet us at the livery around midnight.”

  “Taggert will never pay,” Tom Ferguson said. “He’s as stubborn as a Missouri mule.”

  “And,” Cole said, “I think he’s the one who called in that Denver detective, Farnsworth.”

  “I have no doubt. That’s why we’re goin’ to read Mr. Taggert chapter and verse tonight.”

  “You gonna kill him?” Cole asked.

  “We won’t have to,” Fincher said.

  “Cole, you and Tom go straight to the bank when you get to town and put those silver bars in the safe-deposit box. You got ’em wrapped right?”

  Cole and Tom both nodded.

  “Ain’t we goin’ to draw on them bars?” Tom asked.

  “That will be taken care of, Tom. In due time,” Fincher replied.

  “I hope so. At seventeen bucks the ounce—”

  “Never mind about the price of silver. Just do what you’re told,” Fincher said.

  “Sure, boss.”

  “Then you and Cole make some calls on those holdout Mexes on your list.”

  “We know what to do, Finch,” Cole said. “You don’t need to keep harpin’ on it like my old lady.”

  Nobody laughed. Fincher frowned and looked up at the sun to mark the time of day. He held a hand over his forehead to shade his eyes.

  “Okay, men, split up, two by two, head into town from different directions and at different times. I know where you all are stayin’, and we’ll go over tonight’s business tomorrow. Meantime, you boys see how many Mexes you can get to pay up on their insurance premiums this afternoon.”

  “That it?” Vickers said. His horse was restless and fighting the bit. He whapped the dun on its withers to calm the gelding down.

  Fincher reached in his pocket. He pulled out a large golden coin.

  “No, there’s one more thing. I got a fifty-dollar gold piece here. It goes to the man who puts a bullet in that Sidewinder feller.”

  The men all murmured in approval.

  “Fifty bucks to kill a human snake,” Fincher said, holding the gold piece up and showing it to all of them. “So keep your eyes peeled. Now wear out some leather gettin’ to town. Cole, you bring me a receipt for that silver.” Fincher slipped the gold piece back in his pocket with a dramatic flourish. He could almost hear the men mentally licking their lips.

  “Sure thing,” Cole said.

  Lenny and Finch rode off to the north while the others split up in preplanned pairs and took different paths to Leadville.

  Mountain quail called and a hawk skimmed over the road, its head turning from side to side as it hunted for its next meal. A lone coyote slunk into the brush on padded feet, a ghostly shadow in the sage and creosote. A lizard slid across a rock, the sun illuminating its blue and yellow stripes, its nervous tail.

  In moments, the road was empty and the sun boiled at its zenith, a furious cauldron of ignited gases and orange flames belching from its furnace.

  FOURTEEN

  Brad could smell the livery stable half a block before his boots took him there. There were horses tied outside at the hitch rail, unsaddled dray horses, and the false front that proclaimed, in fairly fresh paint, LEADVILLE LIVERY STABLES was still damp from the previous night’s rain. The faded letters ORO CITY were still faintly visible underneath the new paint in LEADVILLE.

  Flies sawed the air around the horses’ rumps, and several of the big draft horses had blood trails down their flanks where the buzzers had fed. Some of the horses wore the brand Circle PM on their hips.

  He walked into the darkness of the stable, his nostrils filled with the fresh scent of manure and urine. He set down his bedroll, saddlebags, and rifle just inside the door and looked down the shadowy corridor of the livery. Every stall was filled, it seemed, and he walked toward the back doors where Ethan Sommers, the stable master, pushed one of them open a crack. He put his shoulder to the door since the outside was bucking against a muddy curl of dirt and offal that blocked the door’s base.

  “Morning, Ethan,” Brad said and helped the young man push the door wide. The back lot was still wet with pools of water steaming in the sun. The two pushed the other door open, and sunlight streaked the straw floor of the stable just inside and pushed the shadows toward the center of the building.

  “You here to pick up Ginger?” Ethan asked, the stub of an unlit cigar between his rotting teeth. He never smoked inside the livery but chewed up a half dozen cheap cigars a day until he went home or to the nearest cantina. He was a lean whip of a man in his midtwenties who wore faded overalls and a blue bandanna around his neck, a moth-eaten silk jockey’s cap on his head, a reminder of earlier days before both of his legs and hips had been broken in a fall from a Kentucky Thoroughbred in Frankfort.

  “Yeah,” Brad said to Ethan as the man limped toward Ginger’s stall. “I can saddle him.”
>
  “You can saddle him, Brad, but you can’t ride him. I ain’t opened the tack room yet. Last night’s rain flooded my crick and I got here late.”

  “What do you mean I can’t ride him?”

  “Ginger threw a shoe this morning when I grained him. You aimin’ to ride back to your ranch, horse’ll come up lame before you go ten rod.”

  Brad swore under his breath.

  “Show you, if you want to see,” Ethan said. “Or I can get your tack.”

  “Show me.”

  The two men walked to Ginger’s stall. Ethan opened the gate. It was dark inside, like the inner sanctum of a coal bin, but Brad could see the bare outlines of his horse. Ginger whickered at him, but made no move to come out.

  “You wait here, Brad,” Ethan said and slipped a rope halter off a nail on the post in front of the doorjamb. He stepped inside, spoke in low tones to Ginger, and emerged seconds later, leading the strawberry roan by the halter. Ginger’s blaze was slightly smudged from rubbing up against the walls of the stall.

  “It’s that left hind foot,” Ethan said. “I got the shoe in a box of knickknacks in the tack room.”

  “Usable?” Brad said as he took the rope from Ethan and patted Ginger on his withers.

  “Worn to a nub on one side. Couldn’t no way pitch with it even.”

  “Damn,” Brad said as he bent down to lift Ginger’s left hind leg. There was no shoe on it.

  “Better check them others, too. You might be due for a full shoeing.”

  “You’re not a smithy,” Brad said.

  Ethan laughed, a dry crackle in his quivering, tremulous throat, and shifted the cigar stub to the other side of his mouth.

  “In my time,” he said, “when I was about eight years old, back in Kentucky, I shoed all our horses while my old man stood over me with a hickory switch. Ain’t had a hankerin’ for shoein’ since I first rode at the county fair.”

  “No, I guess not,” Brad said. He stood up straight. “I suppose it’s a country mile to the nearest blacksmith.”

  “Used to be,” Ethan said. “Feller name of Sanchez opened him a shop right down the street. Was an old furniture store there, but the owner went broke and the building come vacant. Sanchez is a good smithy. I send him all my business. Like right now, he’s got some draft horses from the Panamint lined up needing new shoes.”