by Paul Lederer
Laredo spoke to the stablehand. ‘He’s never been around guns much. He’s a city-squatter.’
‘Oh,’ the stable man said, satisfied with the explanation.
‘Is there a doctor in this town?’ Billy Dewitt asked, earning Burnett’s gratitude.
‘Butcher, I call him. Doc Page. Send for him to patch a bullet hole and you’ve issued your own death warrant. I say get this man to bed and fill him up with whiskey. He ain’t hurt bad. Not for Ellis.’
‘Where can we find this Doctor Page?’ Billy asked, showing more concern for Burnett’s well-being than he probably deserved.
They were given explicit directions delivered in a rambling monologue. Doc Page was not one of the stablehand’s favorite people, for some reason. Between them, Billy and Laredo got Burnett to his feet. It seemed Burnett was about to faint, but he managed to haul himself upright. He looked up at them with haunted, feverish eyes.
‘I think he was trying to shoot my mare! Will someone make sure that she’s all right?’
‘Your horse is fine,’ he was told and Burnett nodded his gratitude and allowed himself to be half-carried along out of the stable. ‘Sorry,’ the townsman managed to mutter to Laredo as he was escorted along the dusty street. ‘I should have listened to you when you told me what might happen.’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. Whoever shot you was already in place in the stable by the time we talked to you.’
‘I just don’t see what they want of me,’ Burnett said in a complaining voice as they took him up the steps to the doctor’s office.
‘Sure you do,’ Laredo said. ‘They want you to go home, and it’s not a bad idea if you ask me.’
They left Burnett in the care of a grizzled doctor who must have been nearly eighty years old, and his neat, matronly nurse wearing a clean and ironed white apron. Burnett had become mostly incoherent. All Laredo and Billy could tell the doctor was that someone had plugged him twice with a .44, which the doctor already knew.
Outside the day had grown hotter yet. Few people stirred along the street. Perspiration was whipped off the skin before it could bead. ‘The beer must be selling well,’ Laredo said.
‘Laredo,’ Billy Dewitt spoke up. He nodded toward the marshal’s office, which was near to both the doctor’s office and the stable. ‘Hicks was near enough to hear that shooting.’
‘He was.’
‘Then why…? Let’s get something cool to drink,’ Billy suggested when it became clear that Laredo wasn’t going to answer his unspoken question.
‘In there?’ Laredo asked as they approached the saloon.
Billy’s face took on a sour expression. ‘I’d rather find some cool water.’
Laredo nodded. ‘So would I.’
The usual knot of men was not crowding the plankwalk near the batwing doors. Perhaps the heat had driven them inside. They were three steps from the doorway when a drunken, staggering, hot-eyed David Bean stumbled and slipped his way out of the saloon.
‘You!’ the farmer shouted. He had his gun worn around toward the front, his hand resting on its butt. ‘I knew you’d come back for me!’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Laredo said quietly. He moved a step away from Billy. Bean might have been a threat to no one but himself just then, but you never knew. More people were shot by fools than marksmen.
‘You know what I’m talking about, damn you!’ Bean erupted. His hand flinched but did not close around the grips of his pistol. ‘I knew you’d come to kill me this morning. But I was too smart to go outside with you. Only thing I regret is telling you where Burnett was, because you just marched over there and shot him down.’
‘We didn’t shoot him,’ Billy tried. Bean’s mood was reckless and he had to be calmed down, made to listen to reason. He wasn’t yet ready.
‘You were seen! Three or four men saw you go into the stable, heard the shots and saw you dragging him out of there, bleeding bad.’
‘That’s not what happened,’ Laredo said, shifting his feet. He did not want to kill Bean, the poor stupid drunk, but it was better than letting Bean shoot him. ‘Why would we take Burnett to the doctor’s if we wanted him dead?’
‘Because you knew you couldn’t get away with it. Too many had seen you go into that stable. Besides, it makes no difference to you if he dies or not – at least he’ll be out of the way now.’
‘What do you mean, out of the way?’ Billy asked. He had taken his hint from Laredo and eased a few paces to one side.
‘You know what I mean,’ Bean said. He obviously didn’t want to mention the stolen money – who knew what other ears were listening? Now David Bean was standing hunched forward, head thrust out, looking like a pale vulture. His eyes were red and glassy. None of this made him any less capable of pulling a trigger.
‘All right,’ Laredo said, surprising Billy. ‘You’ve got us. Why not march us over to the marshal’s office and we’ll turn ourselves in?’
‘Don’t you think I know that you’re also in tight with the marshal? Probably offered him a share of—’
‘Bean,’ Billy said sharply. ‘Booze is making you stupid, can’t you see that? There’s two of us; you won’t get us both and even if you could, the marshal would have you in jail in minutes and you’d never get a chance to spend your share.’
‘I’m not falling for any tricks,’ Bean said after a moment’s hesitation in which he licked his whiskey-dried lips. What was he thinking? Did he believe the story about Lester Burnett, or was he simply playing for a way to get a bigger share of the loot from Goodnight?
It didn’t matter: in the next moment the drunken farmer drew his gun. Laredo lurched to one side, Billy ducked and the gun went off close at hand. Bean swayed on his feet for a moment, his eyes going blank. Then he crumpled up like a discarded rag doll. Behind him stood the man who had pulled the trigger.
Neither Laredo not Billy could put a name to the black-bearded man, but he was smiling with pleasure. ‘Glad I could be of help, men,’ the stranger said. ‘I saw he was going to shoot you down and got him first.’ Then, still smiling, the man holstered his gun and re-entered the saloon, where a cry of general acclamation went up.
Behind them on the plankwalk, Laredo and Billy Dewitt heard the leather heels of Marshal Hicks’s boots racketing on the plankwalk as he rushed toward them. The marshal had his Colt out. His neatly combed hair was not covered by a hat. His spectacles reflected the high sunlight, making blue and gold orbs where his eyes should have been.
‘Now what?’ Hicks hollered as he halted beside Laredo and Billy. ‘You’d better hand over your guns, men.’
They did, just long enough for Hicks to examine them and determine they had not been fired. He looked down at Bean, holstered his weapon and turned the body over to see the farmer’s drawn weapon and the .44-sized hole in his back.
‘Who did this?’ Hicks asked from his crouch.
‘Never saw him before. Big man with a full black beard.’ Laredo inclined his head toward the saloon doors. ‘He went back in there.’
‘In there?’ There was still a rousing sound of delight echoing within. Hicks blanched. Obviously, the saloon was a place he generally stayed away from. Hicks had a badge on his shirt, but he had little heart to go with it. That much had been obvious to Laredo when the marshal failed to investigate the shooting at the hotel and preferred to simply ignore the ambush of Lester Burnett at the stable. He recalled the comment of the man they had met when they had first arrived in Ellis asking about where they could find the law in the town: ‘You mean, we have some in Ellis?’
That man at least had a low impression of Hicks’s ability and it seemed to be a generally shared opinion. Certainly no one in the saloon seemed cowed by Hicks’s probable appearance. Hicks smoothed down his burnished hair uncomfortably, looked down at the body of Bean again and glanced toward the rowdy saloon. The man was obviously not up to facing an armed killer in his lair.
He asked Laredo imploringly, ‘I do
n’t suppose you are supposed to … wouldn’t…?’ Laredo shook his head. He was specifically forbidden by statute from taking part in local law issues which did not involve his directive. Marshal Hicks, who had read Laredo’s mandate that very morning, was well aware of that. Laredo was not allowed to risk his prime objective by taking off on tangents, no matter how well meant.
‘Well,’ Hicks said to Billy. ‘you then. You’re going to show me the man who did the killing and help me arrest him. You’re deputized as of now.’
‘I don’t even live in Ellis,’ Billy pointed out. ‘I can’t see what this has to do with me.’
‘It has plenty to do with you,’ Hicks said sharply. ‘If I can’t find the man you’ve described, I might have to take a second look at matters. It could turn out that you did the shooting yourself and are trying to shift the blame to an imaginary stranger.’
‘You know my gun wasn’t even fired!’ Billy, who had not had the experience Laredo had with small-town lawmen, was obviously flustered, his face pale, his eyes wide with incomprehension. He looked an appeal at Laredo, who remained silent.
Hicks said, ‘That’s the way it appears, but it might be I’ll have to lock you up for a while until this can be thoroughly investigated.’
Billy let out a small moan. He again looked at Laredo, wondering why the man he thought to be his friend did not step up and object.
‘The hell with it,’ Billy said with a sigh. ‘I’ll go with you.’
The glaring expression he settled on Laredo stayed in place as the two ‘lawmen’ traipsed into the saloon, letting the batwing doors swing shut behind them. Laredo leaned against an awning upright, boot upraised behind him, crossed his arms and waited.
The batwing doors were still fluttering when Hicks’s high-pitched voice shouted out, commanding everyone to stay where he was. There was the scraping of table and chair legs on the floor and the sudden roar of a .44 pistol being touched off. Laredo heard a few grunts, the dull thuds of struggle and then the bearded man emerged. Billy Dewitt had hold of the man’s belt with his left hand and had the muzzle of his Colt jammed into his ribs. Looking smugly satisfied, Marshal Hicks backed out of the saloon behind them. With a glance at Laredo, Hicks gave an order.
‘Walk him to the jailhouse, Dewitt! It’s time these loafers and trouble makers learned their lesson.’
Billy didn’t even look Laredo’s way as he roughly propelled the man with the beard forward along the plankwalk, marching him toward Hicks’s office. Laredo stretched, watched the handful of men who peered out of the saloon after Billy and the marshal, then turned and started up the street toward the restaurant. He still needed that cool water.
The restaurant was virtually empty when Laredo sauntered in and took a seat at his familiar table. The midday crowd had finished with their meal and the supper arrivals hadn’t begun to show up yet. Most of them would wait until the sun was lower and the heat of the day had dissipated some before eating.
There was a lone man with a pad and pencil on the table in front of him, dressed in a tradesman’s suit, and a lone coffee-drinker sitting staring gloomily at nothing. He looked like a man who might have lost his poke on the last spin of the roulette wheel. There was no need for Laredo to hurry, and so he accepted another glass of cold water from the blonde waitress they had talked to earlier and tried to relax while he devised a plan for himself and Billy once the kid had returned.
He spotted Nan Singleton as she arrived. She looked around the restaurant anxiously, her eyes pausing for a moment at Laredo’s table. He nodded at her but the greeting was not returned. Untying her bonnet, Nan scurried into the kitchen.
Laredo had been sitting there for half an hour or so when they came in.
Bonnie Sue Garret clung to the silk-sleeved arm of Jesse Goodnight possessively as they crossed the room.
Her face was flushed, her eyes bright. Goodnight appeared to be proud of himself. They took a table in the center of the restaurant. Both glanced in Laredo’s direction at least once, but their expressions were neutral, merely noting his presence.
Laredo watched them for long minutes, trying to guess their intentions. Getting nowhere with that, he gave it up and glanced at the brass-clad octagonal clock on the wall, wondering at Billy’s continued absence.
When the kid did arrive minutes later, Laredo’s first inclination was to grin, but he stifled that expression. Billy looked uncomfortable enough sporting the deputy marshal’s shield on his shirt. Billy crossed the room, seeming not to have even noticed Bonnie Sue and Goodnight, pulled a chair from the table and sat down, throwing his forearms on the table top.
‘Don’t you dare laugh, Laredo!’ Billy said seriously.
Laredo only shook his head as if with surprise. ‘Why would I laugh? Tell me what happened in the saloon and later.’
Billy told his tale, relaxing more as it went along. ‘Well, we found Hoop Kingman laughing it up at the bar, regaling men with his tale.’
‘Hoop Kingman is…?’
‘The man with the beard,’ Billy said. ‘The man who shot Bean.’ Laredo nodded his understanding. ‘Marshal Hicks told them all to hold their places, but he was pretty much ignored. I had to punctuate his command by firing a round through the saloon ceiling. That got their attention.’
‘It’ll do it,’ Laredo said.
‘Then there was nothing to do but for me to identify Kingman as the gunman. Hicks lifted his pistol, arrested him and gave him to me to escort to the jailhouse.’
‘Glad it went smoothly,’ Laredo commented. ‘I mean, I would have thought the man would put up a fight, this being a murder charge and all.’
‘That’s what it was, all right, murder for hire. We found fifty gold dollars on him at the jail. They must have come from Jake Worthy. Kingman was a no-account drifter, always broke, according to Hicks.’
‘Yes?’ Laredo asked, for he knew Billy well enough to know he was not telling something.
‘It went well enough,’ Billy told him, frowning. ‘The reason Kingman didn’t give us any trouble or try to get away is that he’s claiming self-defense. With me as a witness.’
NINE
‘Self-defense,’ Laredo said, nodding. He was vaguely familiar with the territorial statute covering the same.
‘Yes,’ Billy said with frustration, ‘Kingman was laughing as we locked him in a cell, saying he would call me as a witness. It seems that if you’re shooting to protect another person’s life you are acting in self-defense. Hicks is going to have to consult with the judge, but given the circumstances he thinks Kingman might have a good chance of getting off—’
‘—because Bean had his pistol drawn and pointed at us when Kingman shot him.’
‘Exactly,’ Billy said. ‘Kingman says he was trying to keep Bean from doing murder and had every right to shoot him.’
‘I don’t suppose the court will consider that Kingman was a gun for hire, paid to shoot anyone associated with Jesse Goodnight.’
‘I think that would be a difficult thing to prove, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ Laredo agreed soberly.
‘It doesn’t look as if Goodnight has gotten the word yet that both of his men are down,’ Billy said, nodding toward Jesse Goodnight’s table.
‘He’s been busy,’ Laredo guessed. Bonnie Sue and Goodnight had their heads close together, whispering.
‘Is it time to eat yet?’ Billy asked, suddenly.
‘Any time you want,’ Laredo answered agreeably. Billy was looking toward the kitchen. Laredo didn’t think Billy was waiting so eagerly for food but for the little waitress who might be serving it.
‘How about we wait half an hour or so,’ Laredo suggested. He studied the young man opposite him. Nothing had been said as yet about the badge Billy was now wearing. There was time. ‘There’s a razor on my dressing table if you wanted to scrape your face some,’ Laredo offered. ‘Let’s show Nan what you look like all prettied up.’
‘Laredo, I…!’ he began hotly, then his
temper cooled off. He was only arguing against himself anyway. As Billy started to rise from his chair, Laredo told him, ‘I’ve heard that a little vinegar will take the tarnish right off that silver shield.’
‘I’ll try it,’ Billy said, absently touching the badge. ‘But where…?’
Laredo called the blonde waitress over. Automatically, she reached for her pad and stub of a pencil, but when Laredo told her what they wanted, she smiled and went off to retrieve a small container of vinegar.
‘Don’t blame me if it doesn’t work,’ Laredo said. ‘It’s just what I’ve heard. I never had one of those myself.’
‘A little rubbing in itself is bound to help,’ Billy said. He was blushing just a little now. ‘Laredo, it’s—’
‘We’ve got all day to talk about it,’ Laredo said, ‘get going! I know she’s already here; I saw her come in.’
Laredo sat watching Jesse Goodnight and Bonnie Sue as they lingered at their table. They had no intention of leaving anytime soon. In fact, the man Laredo took for the owner brought out a bottle of chilled wine to them. They still had not budged when Billy returned, shaven, his hair slicked back, his badge gleaming. His blue shirt, the one he had worn along the trail, still showed dirt, but the shiny badge distracted from that. With an air of pride now he swung into his chair, his eyes drifting toward the kitchen.
‘She’s on the job,’ Laredo said. ‘She brought me this coffee and I think she was looking for you. You’re looking sharp, Billy.’
‘Thanks. I see our friends are still here.’
‘Just enjoying a lazy afternoon,’ Laredo said.
‘But why? Why bring Bonnie Sue out in the middle of the day and take her to supper in a popular restaurant?’
‘I think Goodnight got tired of looking for Jake Worthy. He decided to try and draw Worthy out into the open by antagonizing the man.’
‘Do you think she means that much to Worthy?’
‘Who knows? I just know that if Worthy does spot Goodnight – and one of his hired men is bound to — out walking freely in the open with her while Worthy skulks and hides his face, Worthy won’t like it one bit. He might take it as a slap in the face. That seems to be what Goodnight is trying to provoke.’