by E. R. Slade
It was a different world. The silence after the wind roaring outdoors was hard to credit. He could hear absolutely nothing of the weather in here. The clerk behind the window, well-dressed and pale-faced, regarded him curiously, maybe somewhat cautiously also, as though he might be another stickup artist.
“Is Mr. Tuft here?” Lon got out, his voice sounding odd, echoing slightly in the marbled room.
“Whom shall I say is calling?” asked the clerk, cocking his head to one side appraisingly. His voice was too soft to echo.
“Lon Pike.”
“One moment, Mr. Pike,” the clerk said, suddenly much more respectful, and he stepped around a corner out of view.
Shortly after, a mahogany door to the right opened and here came Tuft, beaming and holding out his hand.
“Mr. Pike!” he exclaimed. “Wonderful to see you. Isn’t this wind something? You look dusty enough to have come a thousand miles on horseback and I’ll bet you only came from a few doors down.”
He ushered Lon into his office, and they sat on either side of an enormous polished desk.
“So, what can I do for our new marshal? Maybe you already have a lead on the holdup men?”
“Can’t say I do,” Lon said uncomfortably, although he couldn’t blame any of it on the chair he was in: it was so soft you could hardly tell if you were sitting or floating in the air. He imagined big-money men sitting here to make deals involving many thousands of dollars.
“So what is it, then?” Tuft was eager. Clearly he expected any contact with Lon to result in good things of some kind.
“There’s been something come up,” he said. “Something I wanted to talk over with you.”
“Oh? What would that be?”
“Mr. Tuft, I’ve been thinking this whole business over. You’ve had a big loss, and lots of other people have had losses, too. You want something done about it. Which makes sense. But that’s the kind of time when it’s easy to get carried away and do something more drastic than might be smart in the long run.”
A hint of a perplexed frown appeared on Tuft’s face. “Go on,” he said.
“Well, you have offered me the marshal’s job. But the truth is I’m probably not qualified to take on the whole of it. It’s not right for me to hold out to you that I am qualified.” Lon was beginning to sweat.
“Oh, is that what’s bothering you?” Tuft fairly brimmed with fatherly warmth. “Last minute jitters before we install you tonight? Don’t fret about it a bit. If I thought you weren’t qualified I’d never consider asking you to take on such a job. Lon, I know men. I’ve dealt with all kinds. I saw you in action so I know you can handle yourself in a dangerous situation. But it’s more than that. You’ve got integrity. So much in fact that here you are coming to tell me your doubts. I like a man who admits doubts. That tells me you don’t have so high an opinion of yourself that you think you can do no wrong. Don’t you worry, son, you will do fine.”
“I appreciate your confidence, Mr. Tuft. But there’s another way here. Marshal Everson asked me this morning to take the deputy’s job since Billy’s dead. If I do that, you won’t lose his experience and I’ll get a chance to learn the job. That way you get both instead of just me trying to figure out how to handle a whole lot of things I don’t know much about yet. Doesn’t that make more sense?”
For a moment Tuft looked stunned. Then his eyes narrowed.
“I wonder how Everson found out,” he muttered, more to himself than to Lon. Then he said, “Lon, the point is, we don’t want Everson anymore. The man isn’t competent. We want to start over with a clean slate.”
“You’re sure it’s just his incompetence you don’t like?”
“Huh? You mean, do I dislike him personally? I guess I don’t like him much. But that wouldn’t matter if he was up to the job. He just isn’t, that’s all.”
“You aren’t out to get rid of him because you think he’s crooked, are you?”
“Crooked?” Tuft looked surprised, as though the thought had never occurred to him. “What makes you think he’s crooked?”
“I didn’t say he was. I just wondered if you thought so, is all.”
“Not really. I suppose things might go on in the card room at his dance hall, maybe, that he might overlook. I wouldn’t know about that. But it can’t be anything worth worrying about or I’d have heard something from somebody about it.”
“Then why not let me take the deputy job and that way maybe I can turn up something helpful about the holdup men—or maybe point Everson in the right direction—and there won’t have to be any big disturbance and everybody’ll be satisfied.”
“I won’t be satisfied, and neither will the council. Lon, you’ve got to learn to think bigger. This is big country and men out here need to be bigger than they’d usually be on account of it. I know you’re a man who can handle this job, and catch those holdup specialists into the bargain. There’s such a thing as too much doubt about yourself, as well as too little, Lon. Now, I don’t want to hear any more about it. Rest assured we’ll give you all the backing you’ll ever need, and when you catch those bandits you’ll be the biggest kind of hero around these parts.”
“Mr. Tuft...”
He grinned. “Now clear off,” he said, getting up. “Even bankers have work to do, you know.”
“But ...”
“There’s the door, Marshal. You’ve got work to do, too, I think.”
There was nothing for it but to give up. Lon left the office baffled as to how to proceed from here.
When he opened the street door, it wasn’t the wind which took his breath away.
It was Zinnia. She wore a street dress with what were undoubtedly all the ruffles and bows fashion dictated, a hat ridiculous enough to be the latest style, and a dazzling smile.
And she was on the arm of a very nattily dressed young man with the air that he owned the world and was questioning whether he would allow Lon to sully it any longer.
Chapter Six
“Marshal Pike!” she exclaimed. “How are you this morning?”
Her companion looked down his long thin nose at Lon, his eyes half closed at such a disgusting sight.
“Hello, Miss Tuft,” Lon got out. He couldn’t quite look at her yet couldn’t quite look away, either. “I’m not marshal yet, you know.”
“As far as I’m concerned, you are,” she said brightly. “Pa says it’ll be official tonight.”
“Perhaps,” he said noncommittally, aware of a faint supercilious smile on her companion’s lips.
“Oh, there’s no doubt about it,” she said gaily. “Pa is never wrong about things like that.”
“I don’t suppose he is,” Lon said helplessly, irritated by the growing derisiveness of the other man’s faint smile.
“I’ve been telling everyone,” she said. “We can’t wait until you catch those thieves!”
“It might not be that easy,” he said, aware of heat in his face. The other man seemed to be enjoying his discomfort. Lon had an urge to do something about him but there was nothing reasonable to do.
“Well,” Lon said, a sort of desperation half strangling his voice, as it seemed to him, “I’ve got to go. Nice to talk to you, Miss Tuft.”
He touched his hat and went out.
“Isn’t he a fine man,” he heard Zinnia say, and before he could pull the door shut after himself, he heard the nasal voice of her companion: “Can’t picture him jailing a drunk, let alone a bandit.”
The blowing grit for once seemed a welcome distraction. Seemed like peace and quiet compared to what was going on inside him. He was going to have to get his thoughts straightened up again before he did anything more, and he’d always found he thought more clearly when he was riding Blacky, so he headed for Gabe’s livery.
He thought Gabe might ask if he wanted the job as stable hand, but Gabe didn’t say anything about it. Lon saddled Blacky and rode out of town in the same direction Everson had gone and come back from the previous night.
As soon as he could he got into the woods and that was the end of the dust. The wind was broken so all he felt was a cool breeze, though it tossed the treetops overhead. Just getting out of sight of town was a big relief to him. He began mightily to wish he’d packed his bedroll. He was inclined to clear out and leave this whole headache behind.
What plagued him, though, was the face of that duded up fellow she’d been holding the arm of. It was such a superior look he had. And not a bit of dust on him, hardly. Made you want to knock him down and roll him in some.
But maybe dirt just didn’t stick to the rich.
Well, this was a stupid line of thought. What did he expect? That fellow looked like the kind of man a girl like Zinnia would be seen with. What sort of picture would it make for her to be going anywhere on his own arm? With his battered, sweat-stained hat, dusty clothes and scarred-up, stained old gun belt?
No, the kind of man girls like her went around with often wore no gun at all, or if they did, it was a gentleman’s gun in a polished black holster hidden under his coat. Fellows like that hardly needed a gun. While they might sometimes be held up and robbed, normally they got nothing but respect because they owned things and had political power.
“Isn’t he a fine man.” He could hear her say it as if she were standing in front of him, though she hadn’t been when she did say it. He could picture her expression as she said it, too, though he hadn’t actually seen that, either.
Yes, she had said that. But he’d be an even bigger fool than he’d been so far to read anything into it.
So what was keeping him here?
Just then he passed a place that appeared to be a dump. He turned off the path and rode in. There were old cans and bottles and played out tinware and curled-up boots with the soles worn out. Some squirrels made a racket in last year’s aspen leaves and chased each other up a nearby tree.
Lon’s mouth pulled straight as an idea occurred to him. He got down from Blacky, hobbled him in a little grassy area to one side, and went and hunted up an old whiskey bottle, stood it on a stump. Then he backed off fifty feet.
He squinted at it, then looked around thinking he’d as soon not be observed. Off through the trees he thought he caught a glimpse of movement, but then decided it was probably just more squirrels and turned again to face his target.
After another squint, he edged a bit closer, then a bit closer still until the distance was more like thirty feet. He pulled his Colt and checked over the load, not that he was in any doubt about it. He always kept it fully loaded.
Then he holstered it again and took a stance, grimacing at the bottle. Seemed still a long way off. But pride prevented him getting any closer.
He imagined he heard something behind him and turned to look, but there was nobody there. He faced the target again and tried to relax. He decided not to try to be fast but instead deliberate. An old cowhand who was pretty good with a pistol had told him once that slow and careful wins almost every time over quick and desperate.
Unless the other man got lucky.
He regarded the bottle balefully a moment, then suddenly went into action.
Six shots rang out in the clearing, spaced only about a half a second apart. Gun smoke drifted off on the breeze.
And there the bottle stood, untouched, mocking him.
“Not myself,” he muttered. “Got to take hold here.”
He reloaded and tried again.
One bullet chunked into the stump knocking a small piece of rotted bark loose, but that was it.
Grimly, he loaded again. What was he doing this for? He ought to go get his bedroll and clear out.
But what unnerved him was that he knew he could shoot better than this. He couldn’t afford to let this go, whether he stayed around these parts or not.
Finally, on the fifth shot of the next load, the bottle suddenly exploded. But he was still unnerved enough that he fired the sixth shot at the empty space where the bottle had been.
Suddenly somewhere behind him he heard hooves. He spun around, empty gun in hand, to look.
The hoofbeats were rapidly retreating, but the sound came from beyond a thicket and he could see nothing. He ran through the thicket but was too late; whoever it was had gotten around a bend in the trail and put more thickets between them.
He considered unhobbling Blacky and giving chase, but in the end decided there wasn’t much point. It was more important to get his shooting ability back, such of it as he had.
He spent the next hour at it, and things improved quite a bit. He got so he could hit a bottle on a stump at a bit more than thirty feet away within three shots fairly consistently. There he lodged and couldn’t seem to better himself and so mounted Blacky and started back for town.
His mind had cleared quite a bit by now. He had explained to himself that Zinnia was off the table but that he had to straighten out things so he wouldn’t leave a bad impression in town when he pulled out. He might need to return here sometime and he wanted to be able to hold his head up.
As he started back along the trail he thought of the retreating hoofbeats again and wondered who it might be and whether it had anything to do with him or not. Sure seemed like it, yet why?
He saw a fresh hoofprint in a damp place and got down to look at it. There was an odd flat in the curve of the shoe mark. It was distinctive enough that he thought he’d recognize it again. Wouldn’t hurt to keep that bit of information stowed in his mind in case it came handy sometime.
Back at the livery he glanced at hoofprints in the dust inside and around the doorway, but the wind still hadn’t quit and there wasn’t much to be learned. He saw to his horse, paid Gabe for another night and went to his hotel room to replenish his ammunition stock. Then he set his jaw and went to see if Everson was in his office.
He was. He looked up at Lon speculatively.
Lon took the chair without being asked. “You still want me as deputy?” he began.
Everson seemed to brighten. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want you,” he said.
“As long as you understand I’m not letting on to be all that qualified. I’ll do the best I can.”
“That’s all anyone can ask.”
“But there’s something we got to straighten out. Tuft wants to have the town council vote me into your job.”
Everson tried to look surprised, but he wasn’t too much of an actor. After he thought a minute he whistled.
“What did you tell him?” he asked Lon, trying hard to make it mild and unconcerned.
“I told him you’d asked me to be deputy and I thought that made more sense. I got no experience as a lawman.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“Wouldn’t hear of it. It’s being robbed, I think. He wants something done about it. And right quick.”
“Well, it was the smart thing to do what you did,” Everson said, making it sound like the pronouncement of great wisdom. “If you took my job I don’t know who you’d get for a deputy. And you’d need one even more than I do.”
“I could see that,” Lon said to be politic. “But the council is going to meet tonight and it seems as though if you go there with me we’ll have a better chance to convince them of the right way to go at this.”
Everson nodded sagely. “That’s the thing to do all right.”
“Probably I’d better wait until after the meeting to start work, maybe, do you think?”
“Yep. And maybe you’d better tell me everything Tuft said about why he wants to do this. We need our stories straight and to know what to tell them so their worries are answered.”
They went and had lunch and talked it all over, and then, with things settled, they got up, Everson to go back to his
office and Lon to put in the time this afternoon as best he could. As they were parting, Lon said, offhandedly, “I rode off into the woods to sort things out this morning and I thought somebody maybe followed. Can you think of a reason anybody’d do that?”
Everson put a hand to his chin. He seemed a little startled, but then again, maybe not that much.
“No,” he said. “I can’t. You sure about it?”
“No. Maybe it was nothing. I just heard a horse take off suddenly but I never saw anybody.”
Everson gave his ingratiating smile. “Don’t get jumpy on me. We’ve got work to do.”
“I don’t plan to worry about it if you don’t.”
After Everson had gone off to weight down the chair in his office, Lon ambled along to the livery again and went around the corner and out back where manure got piled and a few horses were turned out in a paddock. He studied every bit of ground that looked promising for tracks. When that didn’t tell him much, he leaned on a rail and studied horse’s hooves. He made small sounds with his mouth and a couple of the horses came nearer, undoubtedly hoping for a treat. Once a couple of them came, the rest didn’t care to be left out if there were treats going: they came over, too.
And one of them was a handsome roan gelding, not particularly big but solidly made, well muscled and wide in the chest. One of the horse’s rear hooves was slightly deformed—with a flat place in just the right spot to match the track he’d seen.
The horse came near and crossed a damp spot in the dirt, and there was the track, plain as could be. He petted the horse’s nose and went into the livery.
Gabe was talking to a boy around sixteen about what a stable hand needed to do; Lon went to see his own horse while this was going on. The boy got the job and was put to work with a manure fork immediately. Lon stepped over to Gabe.
“Seems a likely kid,” he said to him, nodding at the boy setting to work with a will.
“Hope he’s better’n his family is,” Gabe said noncommittally.
“They the bad kind?”
“Not bad. Just lazy. Think the world owes ’em a living.”
The boy was down the other end now, pitching manure out the door.