by Paul Lederer
‘Because of the extra posse men?’
‘Yes. He’s pretty sure now that he has Worthy cornered in this town somewhere, and he means to have the money and have his blood. And Bonnie Sue. All debts paid, Bonnie Sue his pretty little woman again.’
‘Yes, I’d like to hear the encouragement Bonnie Sue was giving him.’
‘Jesse Goodnight doesn’t need much in the way of encouragement. She’s playing up to him, naturally; it’s a way for her to win in the game too.’
‘Kind-of a nasty little bunch, aren’t they?’ Hicks said, his eyes meeting Laredo’s for the first time in a long time.
‘They are; let’s see if we can’t do something to end it. I guarantee you Goodnight and the posse are out now searching for Jake Worthy.’
‘Unless he’s hiding out. …’
Hicks stopped. Laredo prodded him: ‘What were you going to say?’
‘Just thinking,’ the marshal said. ‘Suppose Worthy feels cornered, which he is, who could he rely on to shelter him? Maybe little Bonnie Sue.’
‘You mean she is playing both sides of the street?’ Billy asked in amazement.
‘Why not?’ Hicks asked. ‘She seems to have gotten away with it up to this point, and the girl doesn’t seem to mind who it is that butters her bread.’
‘Do you think that Marshal Hicks’s hunch could be right?’ Billy asked, as the two men stepped out into the narrow band of shade cast by the awning overhanging the marshal’s office. ‘Could Worthy be at the Garret place?’
‘I don’t think Jake Worthy would move that fast; I don’t think he’s scared enough yet to convince himself that Bonnie Sue’s protection is worth a cut of the loot.’
‘Or that she would deal straight with him – not sneaking off to inform Goodnight where he was holed up.’
Laredo nodded. ‘There’s that – Worthy knows what sort of woman he’s dealing with by now. Maybe because she overplayed her hand back at her own house. She might have even made a grab for the money while he slept. She did something, said something, because since Worthy rode there, he did have something in mind concerning the woman when he first made that decision. Something changed his mind. Who knows what. Maybe he just got smart and saw her a little clearer. I know that if I were ever to go out with Bonnie Sue Garret, I’d be sure to have my pockets sewn up first.’
‘She’s pretty,’ Billy mused, as they stepped down to again cross the dusty street.
‘Bonnie Sue Garret is too pretty. She knows that she attracts men and they’ll do anything for her. That’s probably what her entire life has been based on.’
‘I wasn’t talking about Bonnie Sue Garret,’ Billy said, nodding toward the pretty little waitress who was standing at the window of a millinery shop, wistfully studying the window display. ‘There’s all kinds, aren’t there, Laredo.’
‘All kinds,’ Laredo said, thinking of his own Dusty, who waited for him down in Crater where he had been headed before this business with Jake Worthy came up, and where he was returning as soon as it was ended.
‘They’re still there,’ Billy said, nudging Laredo as they sauntered in the direction of the saloon. In front of the batwing doors David Bean and Lester Burnett stood with mugs of beer, watching passing faces.
‘I sort-of doubt that’s what Jesse meant when he told them to look around the local saloons for Jake Worthy,’ Laredo commented.
‘Where do you think Goodnight is?’ Billy asked.
‘There’s no telling, but he’ll be working harder than these two. Every hotel and flophouse, barbershop, every place a man can catch a meal, all the gunshops, tailors … Goodnight will have been there.’
‘I wonder if they found that buckskin horse Jake Worthy was riding – or the sorrel Bonnie Sue says he stole from her.’
‘Do you?’ Laredo asked with a hidden smile of approval.
‘Sure, because if they have I’d surely have one of my men watching those animals instead of hanging around a saloon. If they haven’t – well, why is that? Is Jake Worthy gone again?’
‘You’re thinking right,’ Laredo told him. ‘There may be no benefit in it for us, but suppose we start by asking around at all the stables. You’re right – either Worthy’s horse is here and merits watching, or it’s gone, and we need to know where.’
‘It could be picketed out anywhere,’ Billy said as they walked on. ‘But he’d need to have it close by in case the net tightened up around him.’
‘I agree with you again. Somewhere close but sheltered. After we check the stables, we’ll start using our imagination and poking around some.’
‘I wish we could be sure that it’s not hidden out on the Garret property.’
‘We’ll find out,’ Laredo believed, and now Billy turned his head and saw Marshal Hicks stepping out of his office to swing into the saddle of a blotchy-looking paint pony hitched at the rail.
‘Do you think he’s riding out to the Garret place?’ Billy asked.
‘I do,’ Laredo answered. ‘He was sort-of wedded to the theory that Worthy would be hiding out there.’
‘You don’t believe it?’ Billy inquired as they halted in front of a tall, double-doored stable.
‘I don’t know,’ Laredo said. ‘I sort-of doubt it, but I guessed that the marshal would check that out for us.’
‘You’re letting the marshal do a part of your work?’ Billy asked in amazement.
Laredo’s face was almost straight when he replied, ‘It’s his job, too, wouldn’t you say?’ He placed a hand on Billy’s shoulder, turning him. ‘Come on, let’s go look at some ponies.’
Inside they met a dumpy little man in faded overalls. He had an unmanaged bushy mustache that sprouted in all directions. His face was pocked, his mouth pursed with an unhappiness that was probably perpetual.
When they asked him a question he exploded with the anger that seemed typical of all unimportant men when they are braced in their own small kingdoms.
‘How many more men are going to come by asking about that horse?’ he erupted, after Laredo had asked his question.
‘Sorry,’ Laredo said soothingly. ‘Are you saying other men have been here, looking for the buckskin?’
‘That’s what I mean,’ the stablehand said, wiping his hands on a red rag. ‘It must be a mighty important horse – it or its rider. Stolen, is it?’ he asked, his harsh voice smoothing slightly. ‘Or is the man riding it an outlaw?’
Laredo declined to answer the man, angering him again. After glancing along the rows of horses sheltered in the stable, Billy and Laredo went out onto the heated street again. A pair of mounted cowboys dragged past, stirring up the fine white dust. Billy’s eyes continued to search the street eagerly.
‘She’s probably back to work by now,’ Laredo said, not needing to be a mind-reader to know who Billy Dewitt was searching for. ‘Keep your eyes open for Jake Worthy and Jesse Goodnight – I don’t know which one is more dangerous right now.’
‘I’ve never seen Jake Worthy …’ Billy started to say, ‘but talk about dangerous ones! Look there, Laredo.’
Laredo’s eyes were attracted to a one-horse carriage trotting toward them from the end of the street. Rita Poole – Bonnie Sue Garret – was driving it, sitting upright and looking proud of herself in her yellow dress and wide white hat.
‘What do you make of that?’ Billy asked, as the carriage horse trotted briskly past them.
‘I can’t make anything of it, and she’s not going to tell us what she’s up to.’ Laredo leaned up against the wooden wall of a dry goods store. ‘Let’s just wait a minute and see where she goes.’
Where she went was a little surprising. She drew her rig up directly in front of the stable they had just exited. In a minute they could see her talking to the stablehand. Only now the sour, glowering stablehand was smiling so wide it must have hurt his face. He bowed in an obliging way, seeming to be promising his best services.
‘She just knocks men down like ninepins, doesn’t she?’ Billy said.<
br />
‘It’s her life’s work and she’s very good at it,’ Laredo replied, as they watched Bonnie Sue walk across the street, twirling a yellow parasol.
‘She’s a dangerous package.’
‘Something Jake Worthy may have come to realize,’ Laredo said.
‘But what about Jesse Goodnight?’
‘Goodnight has just finished up five years in prison,’ Laredo commented. ‘Talk about giving Bonnie Sue a running start at her prey.’
They watched her enter the same millinery shop where they had earlier seen the waitress looking in the window. When Bonnie Sue was gone, Laredo nudged Billy. ‘Come on, I doubt there’s anything to be learned by watching a woman shop.’
They made their way along the heated street to the next stable in town, the one across from the hotel where they had put up their own horses. The stablehand with the long white beard recognized them.
‘Riding out, gentlemen?’ he asked, leaning on his rake.
‘Not just now,’ Laredo said. ‘We were just looking for a friend that might have ridden in.’ He described Worthy and the buckskin horse.
The bearded man shook his head. ‘No one like that. You’re not the first ones to ask, though. The man must have a lot of friends.’
‘He’s pretty well known,’ Laredo agreed. ‘Tell me, are there any more stables in town or folks with horse pens nearby who might pasture his pony out for him?’
The old man scratched his head. ‘There’s a few. Jennings down south has been known to take in a horse now and then. Rates are cheap, but he’s a mile or so out of town, so most folks find it kind-of inconvenient.’
‘Anyone else?’ Billy Dewitt asked.
‘There’s folks who would be glad to do it for someone they knew, but not as a commercial venture. Does your friend have any family or friends in the area?’
‘Not that I know of,’ Laredo answered. ‘Thanks for your time.’
Outside, away from the vexing horseflies, Billy said, ‘Maybe Marshal Hicks was right – if Worthy is in town those horses either disappeared or they’re out at Bonnie Sue’s place.’
‘You’re right,’ Laredo agreed, crossing the street again toward the hotel. The street was now bustling with pedestrians, dawdling cowboys and wagons crowding the avenue.
‘You do think that Hicks was on the right trail, then?’ Billy asked. They had achieved the plankwalk in front of the hotel. Laredo removed his hat, wiped out the sweat band with his scarf and repositioned it.
‘No. I think you’re right about Worthy’s horses. You said they had either disappeared or were out at the Garret place. I think they’ve disappeared.’
Billy gave Laredo another of his puzzled looks.
Laredo explained: ‘Think about it. Jake Worthy is not short on brains, He knows that one way he can be identified is by the horse he rides. He probably got rid of that buckskin. Gave it away, sold it. It wouldn’t matter to him which. He has plenty of money to buy another horse when he needs it. The sorrel he never wanted anyway, he just didn’t want Bonnie Sue following him on it. I’d say some saddle tramp or man stranded and afoot got the bargain of his life from Jake Worthy.’
‘Both horses are long gone?’
‘I’d say so. I could be wrong, but if I were Worthy and had the money to replace my horse, I’d get rid of that one as soon as I could.’
‘But you think Worthy is still in town?’
Laredo shook his head. ‘That’s the difficult part to figure. He had a night to rest up and eat, to outfit himself. If he bought another horse, he could be riding miles away from Ellis, and us with no way of knowing which way he’s gone.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ Billy said. ‘We should have been asking about a man who bought a new horse and not somebody who had left his to be cared for.’
‘It would have been a better idea,’ Laredo agreed. ‘But how many horses do you think change hands in a day around here – through a sale, a trade, a wager?’
‘A lot if it’s like most places I’ve been,’ Billy said. His expression now was crestfallen, defeated.
‘Cheer up, Billy,’ Laredo said, ‘I think Jake Worthy is still in town even though that’s just a feeling.’
‘Why would he stay around? He knows he could shake us off his trail now.’
‘How could he shake Jesse Goodnight – ever? Jesse wants Worthy’s blood and he won’t quit hunting the man. By now Jake Worthy must surely have seen Jesse around town or at least heard the description of a man asking about him,’ Laredo said. ‘Maybe Jake Worthy has decided to stay long enough to finish matters off here and now. One back shot in some alley would remove the weight of Jessie Goodnight from his mind for ever.’
‘But if Worthy got caught,’ Billy objected, ‘he’d be strung up and all of it will have been for nothing.’
Laredo nodded his agreement. Both men stepped aside to let a pair of well-dressed town ladies pass them on the boardwalk. When the women were out of earshot, Laredo went on: ‘We are agreed that Worthy is canny, sly. We know he’s well-heeled now, traveling with gold in his poke. If he wants to have things finished, Billy, there’s no reason in the world for him to do it himself.’
‘Hired guns?’
‘Why not? He sees himself as outnumbered five-to-one now. I don’t doubt he is capable of hiring some guns. How many men do you think could be picked up in a saloon – men down on their luck, men who lost the game when the last card was turned over, even drunks looking at the bottom of their last bottle – by a man whose pockets are filled with money?’
‘More than a few,’ Billy answered, frowning. ‘But, Laredo, if you happen to be right, have you thought that maybe Worthy’s thinking wouldn’t end with removing Goodnight from his trail? He could hire men to be put on to us as well.’
‘Yes, I have considered that, Billy. We won’t know until it’s too late, but I think we should walk warily in Ellis from here on, because we may already have bull’s eyes painted on our backs.’
SEVEN
The young waitress’s name was Nan Singleton. Billy found this out when they returned to the hotel restaurant at noon. Uncertainly, shyly, he had asked the older blonde woman who served them about her when he did not see her working.
‘Ah, honey,’ the waitress said, placing coffee cups down between Billy and Laredo. ‘You mean little Nan. Nan Singleton. She works what we call a split-shift: breakfast and supper, that is. She’s off during the middle of the day, but she doesn’t seem to mind, says she has more time to get her chores done. Me, it would drive crazy….’
The waitress went on to express more of her personal preferences and tell them some of her own problems, but neither man was listening. Laredo, who had removed his hat and combed back his copper-colored hair with his fingers, sat smiling vacantly at her, nodding at intervals until the waitress was summoned to another table.
‘Well,’ Laredo said, folding his hands together on the table, ‘you’ve got her name now.’
‘Yes. I don’t know what good it does me. Everybody else who comes in here probably knows her name anyway.’
‘Probably.’
‘I wish I knew where she lived, Laredo.’
‘Ask the waitress when she comes back,’ Laredo prompted. ‘If she doesn’t want to tell you, it should be easy to find out. Nan Singleton lives in this town, works in this restaurant. People know her. We can ask around. I guarantee she’ll be easier to find than Jake Worthy.’
That brought Billy back to the real world. Men maybe out looking for a chance to gun them down, Goodnight on a rampage, the marshal gone, Bonnie Sue frittering the day away in a shop, Worthy keeping his head down in some nearby hide-out….
‘We sure walked ourselves into something, didn’t we?’ Billy muttered, refilling his coffee cup.
‘I’m kind-of used to it,’ Laredo answered. ‘It goes with the territory, as they say.’ After a thoughtful pause, Laredo told the blond kid, ‘You know, Billy, you’ve got no sort of obligation to stay around here if yo
u want to leave.’
‘Thanks, Laredo. I know that, but I sure want to be around to see how it plays out.’
Laredo smiled, nodded and studied Billy Dewitt’s face. He wanted to see how matters evolved, sure. Also, Laredo thought, he wasn’t ready to just ride away and leave Nan Singleton behind yet.
Well, let the kid have his dreams. Laredo himself was looking over the men in the restaurant, looking for a man sitting alone, a left-handed man with black eyes who formerly wore a black mustache, for Laredo was certain that by now Jake Worthy would have gotten himself shaved clean as a sort of disguise. He would have to remind Billy that Worthy’s gun would be slung on his left hip – unless Worthy was also willing to wear it on his unaccustomed right side to throw people off. That seemed unlikely; Jake Worthy figured to need that gun before he left Ellis, and he would need it quickly if he happened to run into Jesse Goodnight.
And where was Goodnight? They had not seen him this morning although his henchmen and former posse partners had been easy enough to find. Bean and Lester Burnett seemed to have given up all pretense of searching for Worthy after one rapid, desultory sweep through the town.
Probably they were right – Jake Worthy was not going to be found walking the streets at high noon. That would not stop Jesse Goodnight. He would be peeking into dustbins, prodding piles of refuse, scrounging through the alleys and flophouses looking for the face of the man who had doomed him to five years in prison. He would not quit.
Where, then, was Jake Worthy? He was well and completely hidden in town or nearby. At the Garret place? Laredo did not think so, but he had been wrong before. If he was, he was going to meet Marshal Hicks shortly. It could be that Hicks would catch Worthy by surprise and that would be the end of it.
Again, Laredo doubted it. Worthy was just too savvy, too clever to be taken unaware. Bonnie Sue was in Ellis shopping as if she did not have a care in the world or a bandit hiding in her house. And she had the money to go shopping. Whose?
Laredo thought fleetingly of the old woman out at the cottage. Laredo figured her for the sort of old lady who would simply put up with whatever came her way without complaint. Once before he had made that sort of judgment only to have an old, harmless-looking soul break out a shotgun from her closet when she’d had enough.