“Marshal, soon as I saw you on the street I came running. Marshal, you’ve got to be careful!”
“Well, I try to be, Prissy. What’s wrong?”
“Did you ever hear of Boone Silva?”
He felt a sudden emptiness in his stomach. “I have,” he said. “Why?”
“Marshal,” she leaned closer, “somebody here in town wrote to him!”
“They’ve got the right,” he said, “if they know where he lives.”
“They knew all right! Marshal, that letter was mailed in one of them cheap kind of envelopes they sell over to the store…Ever’body uses them…And it was printed. The address was printed, like whoever sent it didn’t want the handwriting recognized.”
“Private business, Prissy. It is none of my affair.”
She sat back in her chair. “Isn’t it now? Why would anybody from here be sending word to a hired gunman? There’s no cattle war on. No trouble of any kind except what you bought for yourself when you began hunting that murderer.
“Somebody shot at you, Marshal. Somebody hit you on the head. Somebody killed poor Johnny McCoy. I think when you got George Riggin’s saddle—”
“How did you know about that?” he demanded sharply.
“Marshal, you’ve lived here long enough. Nobody has any secrets in this town. Mrs. Riggin told Elsie that George wanted you to have his saddle…Now why would you want another saddle? If he was going to give it to somebody why not little Billy McCoy, who got his bridle? Ever’body just naturally figures there had to be some reason. You know, that maybe George was tryin’ to tell you something.
“Well, when I saw that letter to Boone Silva, I just knew it was account of you. Somebody wants you dead, Marshal, somebody wants you dead almighty bad. Now you just watch. In a few days he’ll come ridin’ into town, and—”
“You sent the letter?”
“Had to. It’s my bounden duty. All the same, you being the Law, I figured you should ought to know.”
“Thanks, Prissy.” He filled his cup. Then he thought of the obvious question. “Where did the letter go to, Prissy?”
“Trinidad.” He filled her own cup. “Marshal, it makes a body wonder. How did whoever wrote that letter know where to find him? The way I heard it, Silva was around Tascosa, and if not there, Las Vegas. How did whoever wrote that letter know to write him in Trinidad?”
It was a good question, a very good question. Borden Chantry stared into his cup. God, he thought, don’t let Bess hear about this!
Silva was a gunfighter…He’d been an outlaw, had done time in prison, and lately had been riding for various ranches around the country, driving nesters off the land. He had killed three or four men in gun battles, and it was said a half-dozen more should be added to the list, but who knew about that?
“Don’t say anything about this, Prissy,” he warned. Yet even as he said it he knew what a talker she was, and doubted she could keep the story even if she tried.
Her next comment reassured him. “Don’t worry. You think I want that man to know I told you that? He might decide to kill me. I just won’t tell anybody, Marshal, and don’t you, neither.”
She got up and left just as Blossom Galey came into the room. She saw him at once, and crossed to his table. “Hi, Bord! It’s good to see you! Seen Lang this morning?”
“No, I haven’t. Sit down, Blossom. I’ve been meaning to ride out your way.”
“Now, Bord, you know better than that! Why, you’re a married man with a family!”
He blushed, and she laughed, delighted.
“I didn’t mean that,” he protested, “I just wanted to talk to you about George Riggin.”
“George?” Her face saddened. “That was bad, real bad! I liked old George. He was a real man. Don’t find his kind around much anymore.” Then she looked at him. “What about him, Borden? If there’s anything I can help you with, you just let me know.”
“He was coming out to see you when he was killed. Had you sent for him?”
“Me? I should say not! Why would I need the law? If anybody gave me any trouble, I’ve got a Winchester. That’s all the law I need on my land, because if anybody was troubling me it would be rustlers, and I’d take care of that myself, just like Pa used to.”
“Better leave it to the law, Blossom.”
“What law? You’re the town marshal. You’ve got no jurisdiction out yonder. We’ve got us a county sheriff I hear, but I’ve never seen him. Maybe there’s a United States marshal in Denver, but how does that help me? By the time I got to him and he got here my cows would be in Mexico.”
“He wanted to talk to you, Blossom. Have you got any idea what it was about?”
She hesitated…just a moment too long. “No, not really, Borden. George was like a second father to me, in some ways. He was a good man, but he never trusted anybody very much, and he was always afraid I’d get into trouble.”
“You don’t know why he suddenly decided he had to see you?”
“No,” she said again, more quickly this time.
He did not persist, yet the idea remained that she did know why George Riggin had been coming to see her, or had an idea. Why, then, would she not tell him?
For a moment his thoughts returned to Boone Silva. The man was notoriously fast with a gun, and a dead shot. Suppose Priscilla was right and he was being sent for to kill him? How would he stack up with Silva? He had never considered himself a gunfighter, and had dodged any suggestion of the kind. He was good with a gun, but he’d never had any idea of matching skills with anyone…this was for crazy kids. He had no idea of killing anyone.
Yet supposing he was faced with it? Right here on the street?
He shook his head to clear away the thought. He would straddle that bronc when time put a saddle on it. For now, he had too much else to do.
“You don’t mind if I sit here?” Blossom asked suddenly. “I’m waiting for Lang.”
“Sorry, I was wool-gathering. Got a lot to think about these days.”
Who would know about Silva? Kim Baca, of course. Kim knew all the men who followed the outlaw trail.
He got up suddenly. “Blossom? Stick around, will you? I want to talk to you again. I’ve got to run up to the bank now.”
“Oh, I’ll be in town! There’s a dance…or didn’t you know? Lang’s taking me.”
He’d better talk to Bess. She liked dancing. And oddly enough, for a man who was not very social, he liked it, too. And they all said he was good. Well…maybe.
He walked up the street, watching people from habit. At the bank he turned and looked down the street again. Supposing somebody had sent for Silva to kill him? Would Silva be likely to shoot from ambush? Or face him somewhere?
If Kim Baca did not know, Time Reardon might. Would he get an honest answer from Time? He considered that, and decided he would. Time would tell him, no matter how it was. Well, that was what he wanted.
He entered the bank and the teller motioned with his head toward Johnson’s office. The banker looked up as Chantry came in.
“Ah! How are you, Chantry? Sorry I was so short with you the other day, but I am rather jealous of my files. People like to keep their financial affairs a secret, you know, so I hesitated.”
“What did Sackett want?”
Hyatt hesitated only for a minute. “He opened an account. He gave me a check for three thousand dollars on a bank in Santa Fe.”
“Three thousand?” Chantry dropped into a chair. “Did he give you any idea why he was depositing it?”
“As a matter of fact, he did.” Hyatt Johnson sat back in his swivel chair. “It must be confidential, of course. He was anxious that she know nothing about it until he had done some checking. He wanted to see if there was any man around who might be taking money from her.”
“Her?”
“Mary Ann Haley.”
They stared at each other, and then Johnson shook his head. “It isn’t what you might think. Sackett explained it very quickly, very simply.<
br />
“A few years ago there was an epidemic in a western mining camp. Mary Ann Haley, risking her own health, nursed a number of men through their illness, and one of them was a Sackett.
“Well, you’ve heard about the Sacketts. They pay their debts. Somebody came through Mora and happened to tell them that Mary Ann was sick, that she needed to change her climate, but didn’t have the money.
“That was all they needed to know. Several Sacketts put up money and Joe started over the trail, part of it in cash, and the rest in a draft on that bank in Santa Fe.
“He went to see her, but he wasn’t satisfied. You know how it is. Often those girls are keeping some man on the side who simply takes all their money, and Joe wanted to look into the situation before he gave her the rest of the money. He also wanted to make up his mind whether she should have it all, or just a drawing account.
“He deposited the check with me, and he left his saddlebags.”
“Saddlebags?”
Hyatt Johnson turned toward the big safe. It was an old safe, no longer used for the day-to-day banking business, but as a place of safekeeping for valuables of local people or travelers.
Opening the safe, he took out a pair of worn saddlebags and dropped them on the desk. “You’ll have to sign for them, Marshal. It isn’t that I do not trust you, but they were left to me for safekeeping.”
“Sure. I’ll sign.” Borden Chantry got to his feet. “Thanks, Hyatt. This is a help. Now, for the first time, I really know why he came to town. It helps.”
Hyatt pushed a sheet of paper to him, and Borden signed. As he was signing his name, Hyatt added, “Marshal, Sackett was carrying gold, a good deal of it.”
“How much?”
Johnson shrugged. “Several hundred dollars…maybe more. It was in a money belt and a sack he had tucked under his coat. It was heavy…I could tell from the way he moved.”
“Thanks.” Johnson sat back in his chair again, and Chantry moved to the door of the office. “I’ll talk to Mary Ann.”
Hyatt Johnson shifted in his chair. “Chantry? I’d be careful. Be damned careful. They’ve missed up until now, when they tried for you, but they didn’t miss with Johnny McCoy or with Sackett.”
His route down the street took him past the Corral Saloon. He paused in the door, then went in. Two men were playing cards at one of the tables, and a freighter was at the bar with a beer.
Time Reardon was polishing a glass when Chantry came in, and he put it down and walked to the far end of the bar to meet him. He took the cigar from his teeth. “Something for you, Marshal?”
“A little conversation,” Chantry rested his thick forearms on the edge of the bar. “What do you know about Boone Silva?”
Reardon took the cigar from his teeth. “I have never done any business with him,” he said slowly, “but the word is that he’s a dangerous man.”
“Would he kill a man for hire?”
Reardon smiled. “He’d kill a man for hire, he’d kill a man for fun, and he might just kill him to get him out of the way. The man’s completely without conscience or scruples, Chantry, and anybody who deals with him is begging for trouble.
“He’s a man of about five nine or ten. Weighs about one sixty, I’d say. He’s a dark, swarthy man with black hair but pale blue eyes…kind of a glassy look to them. The top of one of his ears is cut cleanly off…I don’t know how…but he usually keeps it covered with hair.
“He’s good with any kind of a gun, and he’ll shoot you from the front or the back.”
“That’s what I wanted to know…what to expect.”
Reardon took up his cigar. “Whiskey?” he suggested.
“I’ll have a beer.”
Reardon poured himself a drink. “Rarely touch the stuff,” he said frankly. “It doesn’t mix well with business…or guns. Or cards.”
He took a bottle from under the bar and a glass. He filled the glass with beer. “Is he coming here? After you?”
“I don’t know, but there’s a suggestion that he might.” Chantry tasted the beer. “Reardon, I don’t know much about such things. What would it cost to hire a man like that?”
Reardon smiled, then shrugged. “Marshal, Silva would kill a sheepherder or a cook or a drifter for fifty dollars. For a nester it would cost a hundred…if he had a family.”
“For me?”
“Two hundred…maybe more. There are some who say you are very good with a gun yourself. He’d want at least two hundred, and he’d want the odds.” Reardon dusted the ashes from his cigar. “He’d want you armed, so he would have an excuse, but he’d try to pick a time when you weren’t ready. Suppose you’ve been having coffee over at the Bon-Ton, and you start to rise from the table. Often a man will rest a hand on the table or a chair in rising, or you grasp the pommel of your saddle, preparing to mount…He’ll pick a time that works for him, Marshal, and he won’t miss.”
“Two hundred? That’s a fair chunk of money.”
“It is that.” Reardon smiled but his eyes were cold. “Not many men in town could ante up that kind of money. I suspect Johnson could. Blazer might. Blossom Galey could.”
“Why Blossom?”
“She’s got money enough. Whether she has the reason, I wouldn’t know. If I were you, Marshal, I’d not rule anybody out who could pay two hundred dollars.”
“Including you?”
Reardon chuckled. “Including me.” He looked straight into Chantry’s eyes. “But that’s a lot of money to spend, Marshal, when I own a Winchester.”
“You left somebody out,” Chantry said.
“Who?”
“Mary Ann Haley,” he said, and drank the last of his beer.
Chapter 12
* * *
BORDEN CHANTRY WALKED south on Main Street until he was past the Mexican café, then turned along the well-worn path toward Mary Ann’s house, which stood back by itself in a small grove of trees.
It was a square white house on which a small addition had been built, a porch across the front, shaded by several big old cottonwoods. There was a stable in back and a hitching rail in front. He saw no horses as he approached, no sign of life other than a thin trail of smoke from the chimney.
He paused in the shade of the nearest cottonwood. There was a slight breeze there and it felt cool. He removed his hat and wiped his hatband. He did not like what he had to do. Questioning women was something he would never like, and especially as Mary Ann was sick.
Was she a suspect? Sackett had been to her house, and he had been carrying considerable money. He had brought the money for her, and had more waiting in the bank, but did she know that?
Mary Ann had no boyfriend hanging around. If she had, everybody in town would have known it. Lucy Marie now, she was sweet on one of the riders out at the O-Bar-O, sometimes called the Dumbbell. Chantry went up the steps, spurs jingling a little. The boards creaked under his weight. He tapped on the door.
It opened at once, almost as if he had been expected. Lucy Marie answered the door.
“Marshal? Won’t you come in?”
He stepped in, removing his hat. “How are you, Lucy? Is Mary Ann in?”
“You come and sit down, Marshal. I’ll go tell Mary Ann you’re here.”
As she left the room, he glanced around. It might have been any parlor in any house in town, except there was a piano, and he knew of only one other in town. And that was in the church. No, that was an organ.
The carpets were a little thicker. The furniture was velvet or something that looked like it. There was a lot of red…and it was a little brighter than he’d expect to find in most houses.
The curtains parted and he looked around at Mary Ann Haley, rising to his feet as she entered. “How do you do?” he said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”
“It is all right, Marshal. I feel a little better today.”
“I am investigating the murder of Joe Sackett.”
“So I assumed. Do you want to know what I know about him? Or is it some
thing else?”
Before he could reply, she turned her head. “Lucy? Make us some tea, will you?” She glanced at him. She was a pale, quite lovely woman, he decided. And on this day she wore a gingham dress in blue and white with a square-cut collar with some lace around it, and on the cuffs. He wasn’t much good at such things, but he looked because he knew Bess would be curious. Disapproving, but curious.
“You do drink tea, don’t you, Marshal?”
“Anything. Oh, sure. But you needn’t bother.”
“It’s quite all right.”
She was visibly thinner than when he had last seen her, and she had always given the impression of being frail—unusual in women of her kind in this part of the country. And she was no youngster…Forty? Maybe. And maybe younger, for she’d had quite a life. He remembered patches of stories he’d heard here and there.
Her folks had been killed by Indians nearly thirty years back, and she had been taken up by foster parents who’d been none too good to her. She’d run off, joined a traveling show, had married an actor who ran off and left her when she grew ill. She had been in California, then Nevada…That was where she had stuck by the boys when they got sick, and risked her life to help them through their illness.
She’d been known in Virginia City, Pioche, Leadville, and Tin Cup, and some said she had worked the cattle towns further east.
Somewhere along the line she had taken up with a gambler, but he had been killed when a stage overturned. Since then there had been nobody.
“You wanted to ask about Joe Sackett. I had never met him until he rode into town. One of his brothers was ill out west and I helped nurse him to health, along with some other men. He heard I was in trouble, and Joe came to bring me some money.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred dollars…to start. They said there would be more when I got located out on the coast.”
“Joe Sackett gave you five hundred dollars. Do you know how much more he had?”
“I’ve no idea, but he did have more. I saw it.”
“Was there anybody else here that night?”
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