by Jake Logan
Krispin stuck the blade of the shovel into the ground and cocked his head. “That does sound familiar although I can’t say as I’ve ever met him.”
“What have you heard?”
“What sort of thing are you looking for?”
Thanks to how well the conversation had gone this far, the undertaker didn’t seem overly concerned with Slocum’s questions. However, it wouldn’t take much for that to change. Slocum kept his voice easygoing while doing his best to skirt some potentially thin ice. “I heard that name mentioned in the Bullseye. Sounded like he was a pretty important fellow here in town. I’ve been looking for work, so I could use all the important friends I can make.”
In any saloon, there was a good bet that over half of the locals in town could be mentioned over drinks either as the source of a complaint or in connection to a debt. As for looking for work, that was another sort of thing that sounded direct but could mean any number of things or nothing at all. At any rate, the undertaker didn’t give it much thought before replying, “Come to think of it, I have heard of an Arthur Vesper. The sheriff mentioned him while I was discussing a burial with his deputy.”
“What burial?”
“Oh, it was a messy affair. If this town had a newspaper, I imagine it would have been splashed all over the front page. A pair of Indian fellas rode in to start trouble and Mr. Vesper chased them off. One was killed, which is what I was speaking to the deputy about.”
“And the other?” Slocum asked.
“Don’t know. Got away, I suppose. If he was locked up, I imagine I would have heard about it. Last time Sheriff Teaghan had an Indian in his jail, the whole town rallied to string him up.”
“Why?”
“More messy business, I’m afraid. The Proctor family was one of the founders of Culbertson, and the only reason they stayed here instead of moving on to California to pursue their original plan was on account of losing their wagon master and supplies to an Indian attack. Folks come here from other parts of Kansas, Nebraska, or Wyoming, and there’s no shortage of sad stories involving the red man in any of those places.” Now that the undertaker had almost finished with one grave, he was more than happy to keep talking while starting the other. “I put that dead Indian into a potter’s field a mile outside of town and that was the last of it. Frankly, I was glad to hear the end of such nasty talk.”
“Why did Vesper chase the Indians out?” Slocum asked.
“Don’t know. I just heard his name mentioned by the sheriff is all. I could ask him if you like.”
“No need for that. Any idea where I might find him?”
“The sheriff?”
“No,” Slocum said in a patiently measured tone. “Arthur Vesper.”
“Oh, I believe he lives down on Third Avenue south of Main.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know which house, would you? If I could speak to him about this business opportunity, it could benefit both of us.”
Business opportunity was another simple term that folks could interpret in any number of important ways. Whichever one the undertaker chose, it was enough to get him to say, “There are only three houses along that stretch. One of them belongs to Johann Proctor. That’s easy enough to pick out. Another might still be empty after Sarah Trapp left, and the third is Vesper’s.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“More or less. He and the sheriff were discussing something, and Mr. Vesper wanted to talk more at his house down on South Third. The rest is as I said.”
Slocum wasn’t sure if the information would be enough for him to find Vesper right away, but it was a hell of a lot more than he’d had a minute ago. One thing he definitely took away from the conversation was to watch what he said in the presence of undertakers. If they were all like this one, they enjoyed town gossip more than an entire sewing circle of nosy old women.
They engaged in some more small talk before the undertaker accepted any more of Slocum’s help to lower the coffins into the graves. When it was time to cover them, Mark picked up the shovel and said, “Any thoughts on the markers?”
“Nothing fancy. Just a simple blessing.”
“I’ve sent plenty of military men to their final rest, so I’m certain I can put together something. Is…umm…is price an object?”
“Just make it look nice. I want their names carved in stone and the grave easy enough to find if any family members come looking to pay their respects.”
“In that regard, you just tell any family they have to talk to me. I’ll bring them out here personally.”
Slocum didn’t doubt that for a second. He also wasn’t sure how he’d pay that bill but knew he’d come up with something. “You’re a good man, Mark. You’ve been a big help.”
“Just doing my job. Where should I send the bill?”
“I can be found at the Bullseye. You know where that is?”
“Of course! I prefer the beer at the Wilfred Arms on Virginia, but that’s just me. You should see it in a day or two.”
Slocum parted ways with the undertaker, knowing full well that both scouts were in good hands.
16
Finding Arthur Vesper’s home was a simple matter of following the directions Slocum had been given. Just as the undertaker had described, there were three houses built on Third Street south of Main. The first one looked empty, and upon a few quick peeks through some of the windows, Slocum verified that it was. The next one was large enough to be Culbertson’s town hall. He walked past it just as the back door opened to allow an old woman and three small children to spill outside. Judging by the sprawl of the property and the number of generations under one roof, he figured that was the Proctor home. That left one smaller house at the end of the row.
If Slocum was a killer looking to stay in town without exposing himself to attack or limiting his options for escape, that was the house he would have chosen. Like Bethany’s place, half of its windows looked out to open land. A fence was built up around it and most of the windows were shuttered. When the small children were distracting the old woman enough, Slocum moved past them and ducked around the shuttered house, hopped the fence, and looked for a way inside. Part of him hoped the owner would be away so he could get in and have a look without being interrupted. Another part wanted Vesper to be home so he could be there to catch a bullet to the heart as payback for killing Daniel and Cullen. Before any of that took place, however, Slocum needed to make certain he was going after the right man.
He knew better than to try the doors. Not only would a man on his guard keep them locked, but they were visible from the Proctor house next door. It had gotten warmer over the last few days. Not as bad as Kansas in the dead of summer, but warm enough to make someone sweat while cooped up inside. No killer’s blood was cold enough to see him through that, so Slocum began testing the windows around the sides of the house that looked out to nothing but flat terrain. Sure enough, he found one that the home’s owner had opened and forgotten to latch. Slocum slid the window up, climbed inside, and eased it down again. When he looked for the latch, all he found were matching sections of splintered wood on the window’s frame and pane.
The interior of the house was quiet. Slocum crouched in a sparsely furnished bedroom with his hand resting upon the holstered .44 just as he’d done when he’d been waiting for the marksman to take his next shot the night before. No shot came. Not even a board creaked. After giving it another few moments, Slocum thought his luck may have taken a turn for the better and he’d arrived while Vesper was away. Now his search could begin. The only problem was that he didn’t know exactly what he was looking for. Even when digging for a needle in a haystack, a man knew what the needle looked like. Time wasn’t on his side so he began working his way through the house and hoped for the best.
It was a small, two-story home. Most of the rooms on the first floor were close to empty. There were chairs, a bed or two, and some random personal things scattered about like shoes, some books, and a pair of spectacles. The ki
tchen was stocked with bare essentials, which amounted to a whole lot of canned fruits, beans, and other supplies that someone would eat while on the trail as opposed to being at home.
“No woman’s touch, that’s for certain,” Slocum said as he closed a cabinet near a small stove.
Upstairs was a different matter. There were only two rooms, but it was plain to see they were where Vesper spent most of his time. One was a bedroom filled with clothes, more books, and trunks. The other was a study containing a large desk and so many pictures hanging about that Slocum doubted he could find one patch of empty wall bigger than his hand. Most of the pictures showed the same man, a balding figure with sunken cheeks and a hawk nose. Dark, narrowed eyes betrayed a wicked soul, even in the photographs where the mouth beneath them was curved into a smile. The photographs were predominantly of men in military uniforms. Slocum counted at least a dozen Army generals pictured with their arm draped over the hawk-nosed fellow’s shoulder at the site of one victory or another. There was even a picture of that man standing in a row of three others shaking hands with a former President.
Photographs weren’t the only things framed and hanging upon the wall. There were several medals, ribbons, and pins that had either once been on a uniform or presented to Vesper for one reason or another. Slocum got closer to the wall so he could read the words engraved on some of the placards or the medals themselves.
“Outstanding marksmanship, courage under fire, valor, more outstanding marksmanship, and a few for performing above and beyond while in combat.” Slocum let out a slow whistle and added, “Looks like I’ve found my sniper.”
Although that revelation made plenty of sense, it still didn’t set right with him. Any man who’d earned those medals and had such an outstanding career in the Army could have made the shots that he’d witnessed. What rubbed him the wrong way was that the same man had become a cold-blooded murderer responsible for the deaths of two former Army scouts.
His eyes darted about the room, looking for anything that might fill in some more gaps. He found several rifles of varying caliber and model, which once again fit if Vesper was the shooter who’d taken down Cullen and Daniel. During a quick search of the upstairs bedroom, Slocum also found a large strongbox nestled at the bottom of a closet. Inside the reinforced iron container was money stacked neater than if it were in a bank vault. Before he could get much of an idea of how much was there, he heard a door swing open downstairs.
Going by the heavy sound of the footsteps, there were at least two men coming inside. Having seen the sparseness of the lower rooms, Slocum knew any careless movement that was made upstairs would more than likely echo in the rooms below. Whether that was by design or happenstance, it posed one hell of a problem for him now.
After the footsteps had made their way to the vicinity of the kitchen, a gruff voice drifted through the house. Fortunately, the sparseness of the lower level also made it easier for Slocum to hear what was being said.
“The trial is tomorrow,” the gruff voice declared. “Tell me you’ve done the job I paid you for.”
The other voice had a sharper, slightly nasal edge to it and was also the same voice Slocum had heard shouting at him from the shadows the previous night as well as when the Bullseye’s front window had been laid to waste. “The trial can take place anytime and won’t last long. I guarantee you that.”
“I need to know the job is done.”
“It is.”
“Both men are dead?” the gruff voice asked.
Slocum had gotten to within a few paces of the top of the stairs. As near as he could tell, the other men were still in or near the kitchen but there was no way for him to be certain.
The man with the familiar voice needed a moment to collect himself before replying, “They’re dead. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”
“Not what I wanted, Arthur,” the gruff voice replied. “But it was necessary. If we’re to keep the profits from that job at Misty Creek, there can’t be anyone left to point the law in our direction.”
“You mean your direction,” the other man said as he moved from the back of the house toward the front in a quick series of steps that were so light Slocum hadn’t known they were coming.
Rather than risk making the noise it took to step away from the top of the stairs, Slocum bent at the knees and leaned back so his body’s weight was centered a bit past the backs of his ankles. It was uncomfortable as hell, but kept most of him out of sight from the floor below.
“I was just hired to clean up the mess you made,” the familiar voice continued. “All of the planning and the mess itself falls squarely on your head!”
Heavier steps knocked against the floorboards, but stopped well short of the staircase. “A man in your line of work should know damn well you can’t just dip your toe into something like this. You’re either all the way in or all the way out, and after killing two decorated Army men, you’re in up to your ears!”
“Decorated Army men,” the familiar voice scoffed. “That means less and less with every passing year. I’d even wager you were the one to decorate them.”
Every muscle in Slocum’s legs cried out for mercy, but he maintained his low position. The fire in his knees and ankles grew even hotter when he slowly raised himself up an inch or so while easing himself forward. He had to get a look at the man near the bottom of the stairs, and when he took a risk by coming up a little more, Slocum got what he was after. Sure enough, the man with the familiar voice was the same balding, hawk-nosed fellow in those photographs.
“I did all I could to try and get those two to sign up for the Misty Creek job,” the gruffer voice said. “Even when one of Cullen’s associates volunteered to lead us to him and Daniel, I didn’t want things to turn so bloody. They had their chance to make things right, but chose to remain traitors to their former regiment. Their doing, not mine.”
“Well, those two scouts are dead, so I suppose that does mean I’m in this,” Vesper said. “It also means I get a bonus.”
“Why would you get a bonus?”
“Because I’ve got John Slocum after me.”
“Who the hell is that?”
Vesper shook his head and turned toward the staircase as if he could feel another person’s presence there. Stopping short of looking straight up to the limited silhouette Slocum provided, Vesper took hold of the banister and said, “He’s not the sort of man that should be trifled with.”
“I never even heard his name before,” the gruff man said. “I sure as hell didn’t trifle with him.”
“No, but one of those idiots you hired sure did.”
The gruff man surged forward until Slocum could see the wide, battle-scarred face that had been posing with Vesper in one of those pictures. The big man wasn’t in uniform now, but he’d worn a major’s insignia in the photograph. “Which idiot?” he asked.
“Milt Connoway,” Vesper told him. “He and some others hired on as muscle for a gambler in Dodge City. From what I was told, they supplemented their income by luring men into a dark alley, jumping them, and making off with whatever they were carrying. Seems like whatever you were paying them wasn’t enough to hold him over.”
“God damn it,” the major snarled. “Any chance you could kill that asshole?”
“He’s locked up in jail. Tricky, but not impossible.”
Judging from the sounds he was making, the major was seriously considering the option before he said, “Milt may have shit for brains, but he’s no traitor. Has he said anything involving me or what happened at Misty Creek?”
“Not apart from what was already in the newspapers.”
Once more, the major stormed forward. And once more, Vesper hardly flinched. “You killed more Injuns than I ever did throughout dozens of campaigns in almost as many territories,” the major said.
“You gave the orders.”
“And you’re retired from active duty. That means if there’s anyone who can take the fall if things go south, it’s you.�
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“Things have already gone south,” Vesper said. “But not so far that they can’t be salvaged. I’ve had a word with the men that are in jail. As far as they know, they’ll be out once the trial is over. They have faith that you would see to that personally.”
“Which is why I’m here,” the major said. “I just couldn’t have those two former scouts of mine here to testify against me.”
“Which is why I’m here.”
That seemed to calm the major’s nerves a bit. “That trial starts tomorrow. I delayed the judge as much as I could through the channels available to me, but there’s no stopping it now. Am I to believe the wheels of justice have been sufficiently oiled?”
“You could say that. Apart from the other work I’ve done, I delivered that payment to Judge Whetuski. Why the hell couldn’t you do that yourself?”
“Just covering my tracks,” the major proudly replied.
“All right. Since you’re so on top of the situation, I take it you brought my money?”
More footsteps made Slocum wince. The major’s boots knocked so loudly against the floor that Slocum couldn’t be absolutely certain which direction he was going. After what seemed like an eternity, the footsteps faded toward the back and returned to the front room. “Here it is,” he said.
It wasn’t long before Vesper asked, “All of it?”
“You can count it if you like.”
“Nah, I trust you. From what I heard about that Misty Creek job, you and your boys hauled in more than enough to finance a whole lot of track covering. In fact, you shouldn’t even miss a bit more.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Arthur?”
“It means I’ve done a good job for you. A hell of a lot better job than those idiots who are cooling their heels behind bars right now. Getting the same cut as them is an insult.”
“It’s what we agreed on.”
“We never agreed on me gunning down two good men.”
“How do you know they were so good?”
Slocum had focused so intently on Vesper that he’d all but forgotten the pain burning through his lower half. Since Vesper and the major were eyeing each other as if the rest of the world had dried up and blown away, Slocum was fairly certain his cover was secure.